LOVELL — On Thursday, July 11, spoken-word artist Diane Edgecomb will present “Forbidden Stories,” a moving performance about her journey to the Kurdish region in Turkey in search of storytellers.

Her quest brought her to remote mountain villages, places usually forbidden to outsiders. Folktales from her book “A Fire In My Heart: Kurdish Tales” are woven into the dramatic true story of her encounters with the Kurds from her first humorous meetings to travels up sheer mountain roads to record the last storytellers.

The performance resonates with the humor and pathos of village life and the colorful people who shared their lives and their stories with her.

“I knew that the storytelling tradition was in peril,” Edgecomb said, “but it was shocking to see how quickly it was disappearing. Young Kurdish people, forbidden by law to study their language, are not learning and passing along the tales.”

Sometimes, after Edgecomb arrived at a village and was introduced to the storyteller, the teller would say “Ne zanim” — “I don’t remember.” Several of the storytellers had recently had strokes that left them without the words and the memory to tell the ancient tales. All those who remembered stories said, “No one has asked me to tell a story for 20 years.”

These were heartbreaking moments made less painful by the many times Edgecomb was able to successfully document very old tellers. Some, such as a shepherd who had recently been forced to leave the nomadic life and move to the city, knew wonderful intricate legends that had been in his tribe for generations.

“As he told the tales his eyes grew distant. He was lost in the memory of stories more real to him than the small room or the whirr of the video camera,” said Edgecomb.

Edgecomb will present “Forbidden Stories” at 7:30 p.m. at the Brick Church for the Performing Arts, Christian Hill Road. Tickets at the door will be $10 for adults, $5 for children 15 and under. Refreshments will be available at intermission.

For more information, call 207-925-1500 or visit www.lovellbrickchurch.org.

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