Lise Marie Seidelin Nedergaard,

born 1968

BA in Russian/old Norse

Storyteller, author, songwriter and paper artist

Both her grandmother and mother have worked as storytellers, and since 1992 she  has been following in their footsteps. She has told folk tales before audiences of adults and children in community houses, theatres, folk high schools, schools etc.

In the beginning her repertoire consisted of Danish folktales and stories from the Nordic mythology. Later, the study of Russian language gave access to the enormous wealth of folktales collected and written down in Russian, not only from the western parts of Russia, but also from Central Asia, Caucasus and Siberia.

In 1998 she contributed to a book on Scandinavian folktales with CD-recordings and illustrations. In 1999 she started working with The Society for Promotion of Living Culture in the School, Copenhagen. The society received money from the Danish Ministry of Internal Affairs to arrange a tour on a large number of public schools with folktales from the countries from which we have emigrants and refugees, - tales, which are richly represented in both German and Russian folktale collections. The tour resulted in the publication of the book "Historien om den dejlige Farisjtamokh", with a retelling of three folktales from Tadsjikistan, Iran and Turkey, made in cooperation with the museum Davids Samling in Copenhagen and the Danish Refugee Aid.

In September 2002 her book "Kameldrengen" was published - containing the retelling of 19 oriental folktales, set in a frame story from Turkmenia and illustrated with her own paper cuttings. In November 2002 a translation and adaptaion from German of a medieval, Persian love tragedy, "Leyla og Madjnun", was published with the financial support from  among others The Ministry of Refugees, Emigrants and Integration and The Ministry of Education.

She has participated in storytelling festivals in Canada (Youkon International Storytelling Festival, 1992 and 1997), Sweden (the Ljungby Berättarfestival 1995), Russia (Golden Keys, 2000), Spain (Guadalajara 2001) Holland (Storia Festa, Rotterdam 2001), Ireland (Scéalta Shamna – a celebration of storytelling and music, Dublin 2002).