is a cross between Lily Tomlin and Woody Allen, the hard edge of feminist certitude cushioned by self-deprecating humor that never slides into self hatred." (Banned in the Western Suburbs) The Boston Phoenix: "Storyteller, Judith Black's latest solo performance may be called Teetering on the Edge, but this actress/storyteller is one awesomely confident babe ... she'll have you giggling in the aisles." Christian Science Monitor: "There were tales and tellers that had moments of nobility and beauty. Black's strongly felt parable about a grove of rootless trees symbolizing the Jewish people evoked feelings of shared humanity." Repertoire Black's various awards and recognitions indicate her work is not restricted to one or another genre, topic, or age group. She has produced children's stories that deal with authentic issues through laughter, as well as darker features of comedy and tragedy. In a performance review by Loren Niemi (2008), Black's spoken-word art is described as "strong material, full of stark imagery and powerful themes." Black delves into riskier sorts of dark humour, featured in for example That Fading Scent, but also touches on the tragic sentiments of war, as described in Homecoming, a compelling story of a mother's helplessness in the face of war. Style That Fading Scent, which employs cross cultural depictions facilitated through the Snow White motif, was well received by the 2006 Fringe audience, but breached the edges of the "mixed (i.e. family) audience" at the 2007 National Storytelling Network Conference, illustrating the subjective limits of what is, or is not, considered appropriate. As Niemi noted, Black's work broaches a philosophical aesthetic dilemma in the storytelling community: How willing are we as a community of storytellers and story listeners to give permission for the performance of different styles and levels of challenge and maturity? How willing are we to entertain performances that subvert the expectations of safe and humorous yarns that have become the norm of the last 20 years of concert telling, to allow storytellings that burst those boundaries and perhaps fail to please an audience in the process? (Niemi 2008, 53) In this sense, testing the subjective limits of normalcy serves up a rescue attempt on the field of storytelling by promoting its self-awareness as a discipline and profession. The uncomfortable perturbations of social breaching, as exemplified in Black's edgier work, contribute to the overall style and aesthetics of storytelling as a professional endeavour. As Mann (2009) noted,