Skills of a Lifetime Are Useless: Rethinking Performing

I have a degree in theatre from Northwestern University!

I trained with Rives Collins!

I was mentored by Nancy Donoval, Sue O'Halloran, Beth Horner, Jackie Torrence, Janice Del Negro, Jim May, Syd Lieberman, Donald Davis, Jay O'Callahan, Dovie Thomason and many others!

I know how to read an audience. I know how to find the sweet spot in the story that reaches out and grabs people's hearts.

I know how to approach an audience and find a place where we can build a community together.

I know how to use stories to reach through generational and cultural barriers.

I know how to craft stories for different age groups, and adjust those stories in the blink of an eye if I feel the need to do so.

In the world of a global pandemic, none of those skills matter.

Why?

I didn't train to be a sound engineer!

I didn't train to be a video editor!

I didn't train to be a film director!

I didn't rain to design lights!

I didn't train to be a tech director!

I didn't train to design soundtracks!

I know how to tell stories.
I know how to tell stories to live audiences.

That's what I got.

Unfortunately.....

Yeah, typically it is monkeys, but I like frogs

1. I cannot see my audience.

There could be five, or five hundred people in the audience, and I cannot see them. Even if they are on the screen I cannot see them. I have to focus like a laser on the camera. If I don't, it will look like I"m not looking at anybody.

2. I cannot hear my audience.

So many of my stories are about creating communal sounds, chants, calls, and expressions, that without them, the space around me isn't full of anything. It is very odd.

3. I cannot interact with my audience.

I cannot take a quick poll of a raise of hands, point to someone who is having a particularly good time, laugh with someone, share a quick look with a particular person, or identify someone who is lost or looking confused and bring them back into the fold. In fact, I can't do anything at all when it comes to making individual personal connections.

4. I do not have a cohesive audience.

I am at my home, and every other person is somewhere in their own spaces. They cannot hear or feel or sometimes even see other people listening. They are having their own private little show, and they are not drawn in or carried along by the energy of anyone else in the audience.

I don't have one audience I have twenty or more. Each one encased in their own little room.

5. I am a floating head in a box.

I do not have the full use of my whole body. My movements have to be curtailed, I have to be aware of what the camera sees, blurring effects, my background, and anything that comes into camera view becomes immediately distracting because everything else has been carefully eliminated so as not to be distracting!


Luckily, I am not yet dead. This means I can still learn some new things. Actually, it means I must!

We are all on a learning curve.

Nobody knows what this looks like.

I have been recording stories since the second week of March. I finally got the hang of it in the last two weeks of May.

I have done more reading about lights, and movement, and the camera, and microphones, and Zoom, and Vimeo, and who knows what else in the last three months.

I have joined groups, asked for help, left groups, asked for help, started groups, asked for help, cocooned, reached out, gone into despair, recovered from despair, shouted my defiance, sheepishly apologized for being a jerk, learned programs I never knew existed, spent money I didn't know I would ever need to spend, worked through fear, anxiety, worry, and frustration.

Then, days ago, the world turned itself right-side up.

Everything started humming. I have found peace in the storytelling work.


1.  I imagine the person or the audience. I imagine how they are reacting, and I tell as if they are right there with me.

2. I make space for the reactions that I feel belong there.

3. I interact with them anyway, and anyone watching can play or not

4. Every single audience is having their own personal experience, and that is lovely

5. I am engaging in a form of media that more people have seen than storytelling. If this is a way to introduce them to my art form, then so be it.

Most of my shows are pre-recorded.

I started uploading shows to our Vimeo with password-protected content. The client can access the content and share it, but nobody else can. When their time ends, we change the password, and the show goes back under lock and key.

I felt like I was starting to get the hang of it. Then, on Tuesday, a pop quiz arrived.

One of the services I offer to libraries is a customized intro. They give a shout out to the Friends of the library or something like that. It is a promo that's just for them.

One of the things I figured out how to do was detach the audio from a clip and replaced the image. So, I got this idea.  I recorded the shout out, took out the video, and replaced it with the sponsor's logo.

I was feeling all clever. 

Apparently, the sponsor saw it and decided that they wanted something better. They have their own studio department, and they whipped up a smooth commercial for summer reading, sent it to the library, and said they wanted to replace my "commercial" with theirs.

The library sent me the sponsor's spot, said they could do the substitution. All I had to do was give them the footage of the show.

Our new business model does not allow for people who are "renting" the material to download it.

Two months ago, I would have had to wake up my son and ask him if he could do this. Six months ago I would have taken it to my daughter and asked her if she could do it.

This morning?

This morning I downloaded the commercial.

Went into my back up disc, found the original show, put it back on my laptop

Loaded the new commercial and the old footage into my editing software

Replaced the old commercial with the new one

Downloaded the new show onto my laptop

Went to Vimeo and isolated the video that needed updating

Replaced the old show with the new one without needing to change the link, and finished my breakfast.

My old skills are not much use right now, but my new ones?

My new ones are pretty awesome.

Happy Learning!

30 Years As A Storyteller!

My season is in full swing. I've only been visiting my home for the last few weeks as I drive all around the eastern United States.

The work has been fun and interesting.

The workshops have been successful.

The kids have been great.

The educators and parents have been great.

I have been having the time of my life.

I've also been mixing it up a bit.

After thirty years, I feel like I know what works and what doesn't. I feel like I have a good handle on my material and what I want out of it. I feel like I'm pretty good at selecting stories and composing story sets.

What I am discovering is that I seem to have moved into one of those periods where things are bubbling up to the top. Just as I get comfortable, I begin rearranging the room. I'm starting to dare myself about the work just to see what happens.

I am trotting out new material and reworking old material just trying to see how it hits an audience . I'm learning new introductions, and different ways to work folktales and personal narrative together so they speak to various populations. I'm finding nuances, connections, and coming up against ideas that have never occurred to me.

Peter Cook

I'm going to be in Chicago in October at University of Chicago on a panel about using gesture and body in storytelling. Leeny is going to be there as well! I will get to see the healing Megan Wells, and the wonderful Janice Del Negro.

I'll be out in California on my birthday, and in the schools. I don't know if I'll get a chance to visit....but I might.

I also managed to secure a literary agent, and I am now deep in edits for my first novel. Somehow, I overcame my unwillingness to admit that I really want to be writing more for a living, and someone out there said they'd give me a chance.

I'm equal parts terrified, excited, and still in disbelief as I try to reshape a novel for the real world and not my own enjoyment.

Heathwood Hall

I'm sitting in a Hampton Inn in Columbia, SC this afternoon after spending the entire day at Heathwood Hall teaching and telling.

The last few weeks have been quite a wild ride.

One of my adopted ten rules of thumb for the artist is, "If you keep hitting the target you are probably too close."

It is hard to move that target because you might miss...but if you don't move it, you don't get anywhere as an artist.


Today I'd planned to write about being honest with yourself about booking shows so that your first set is as crisp as your last. What is the largest and smallest number of sets you can do in a day and deliver the best quality and why?

I will blog about that next week, but I am feeling pretty transformed about the work I'm doing, and I am finding it hard to be practical!

So, I will continue to throw pasta agains the wall and see what sticks, and hope I come out of it better able to do my job.

I wonder if this has something to do with turning fifty this year?
My kids both in college?
Feeling like I just hit a new phase in my life?
Watching my nieces and nephews get older?
Celebrating my thirtieth year as a professional storyteller?

Who knows?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. I moved the target. I mean to spend a decade or more trying to perfect my shot.

Happy Experimenting!

Adjusting In Mid-sentence: Telling To The Audience You Have Not The One You Wish You Had!

Hotel Florence

I spent most of the week in beautiful Florence, SC.

I enjoy this gig. Eight sets in four days.

I stay at the beautiful Hotel Florence.

Paula Childer's amazing staff drives me all over the area so I won't have to get lost.

The libraries are all unique in their own ways, and the kids and adults are fun.



Some sets I might have eight kids and a handful of adults, and some sets I might have over one hundred.

Summer Rules Apply:

1. Whoever Shows Up Get's Stories.
2. As Long As The Audience Outnumbers Me It's A Show.

Today, Thursday, I had my favorite two sets.

Teen ghost stories. I choose three tales from my spooky arsenal, I get kids from ages eleven to seventeen, and I creep them out.

Well, my noon show started out promising. I got five teens and one young tween. Right before I started, a woman came in with two appropriately aged kids and a three-year-old.

Already I am having the "mom" issue. I don't like telling really scary stories to little kids. There isn't any reason to put creepy unpleasant images into their little heads.

So, I began with Boogin in the Gray Graveyard, which is a Bogle story. My tale is a variant of Lucy Dove by Janice Del Negro.


In the midst of this tale, five more people appear and settle into their seats. They seem to mostly be old enough, so, no problem, but I have one older teen who is acting oddly. She won't look at me and stares out the window. Most likely she is someone who is easily scared and has decided she is just going to cope.

Whenever I scare her, she laughs and hits the girl sitting next to her. Oh, well.

My daughter does body art. This is one of hers.

Second story is the Skeleton Woman. I just realized that I learned this story from Janice the first couple of years I was telling!

The tale is about a woman who eats all the flesh off of her own bones.

Goes all right, but the girl keeps giggling.








Then, just as I am about to start my third story, Mr. Fox - which is essentially about a very charming folkloric serial killer - into the room come fifteen children aged four to nine.

I tell Mr. Fox, but it is the most watered down version of the tale I can manage. Then, because the story has gone so fast, I have time to tell Red, Red lips.

Sigh.

When I encounter sets that don't go as planned for a variety of reasons, I try to step back and assess what happened as clinically as possible. I am my worst critic, and I am always sure it was a horrible set, nobody enjoyed it, and it was a complete failure. Whether true or not that is how it feels.

The questions I use to assess the situation:

1. Did the audience enjoy the set?

The audience says they enjoyed it, jumped, laughed, and had some fun.

One of the kids who was there the whole time, said, "that last story got me."
It was Red, Red, Lips.  I had to laugh.

One of them said, "The first story got me." That was the Lucy Dove tale.

So, I accomplished the first most important task. I facilitated kids having a great time at the library. I also shared some memorable images, interested them in storytelling, and motivated at least one of them to go and check out 398.2 in the library.

2. Did the librarians enjoy it?

Yes, according to them they did enjoy it. They jumped and laughed and had a good time with everyone else. They were thrilled I adjusted on the fly and I was flexible.

3. Did I enjoy it?

Today was a day when storytelling was work, and I ended up doing all of that crafting on my feet thing and rearranging, editing, and modifying that so many performers have to do when things change rapidly. So, reading an inappropriately aged audience and telling them tales as they entered was the job. I think I did it, but it was not as polished and clean as I like sets to be, so I was disappointed in myself.

4. Did I fulfill the contract?

Well, I was supposed to tell ghost stories for teens. Since I didn't have an audience of teens, I didn't feel like I could do that. They did get ghost type stories, so...kinda?

Despite my feeling as if I didn't have a stellar set from my own standards, I fulfilled the contract to the best of my ability, and the librarians thanked me for taking the age of the kids into account as I told the tales.

Three hours later, I had another set at another library.

Twenty-six teenagers.

I went full drippy, gory, with jumps and horrible sound effects just because. Lost two after the first story who decided it was too much. The rest stayed to the bloody end. They were creeped out, screamed a little, exclaimed, "Oh God!" "Oh No!" "Don't look!" hid their faces in their hands, plugged their ears, and one kid hid in his shirt about half the time. They shuddered, jumped, laughed, cringed, shivered, and stared in horror for forty-five minutes.








They loved it.

I feel much better.





Happy Telling

Janice Del Negro: The Power Of Story Casts a Spell On Young Adolescents

Janice Del Negro
Ca

The phrase the “power of story,” is ubiquitous in the storytelling world. We talk about it all the time, no matter what kind of storytelling we do or what sorts of listeners we engage. We are not all talking about the same thing, of course; defining the power of story is a deeply individual endeavor. Reading articles and books, historical and contemporary, on storytelling in the United States one encounters power of storytelling references often, most frequently referring to the nearly indefinable power story has to hold listeners in a nearly trance-like state with narrative. 

Alice Kane

I remember having this experience in a half-empty tent, listening to Alice Kane tell Irish fairy tales. She wore a pale blue suit, and stood, one hand on a podium to steady herself, and with her voice and the power of her narrative transformed the world for her listeners, taking them out of literal time and space and transporting them to a moonlit field where an outcast watched fairies dance in a silver ring. 

Fairy Ring

Having this experience as a teller is always something of a shock; intellectually I know the power of story is a real thing, but I am often surprised when it actually works, although experience indicates I should not be. A few years ago I began working with students at two local high schools. The first year I gave a (very) brief history of the folk and fairy tale that focused on the changes made to tales to make them suitable for children- the elimination of sexual activities of any kind, the violence left, if not intact, at least strongly present. 

Little Red Riding Hood Was Not A Very Tame Tale.

Shrek's Rumpelstiltskin

I told ghost tales and folktales, including radical retellings of traditional tales such as “Rapunzel” and “Rumpelstiltskin.” The following year I was asked to concentrate on “something to do with writing.” This time I talked about fairy tales and popular media, told more radically retold fairy tales, and did exercises with students on retelling and rewriting the traditional tales they knew. 

Once Upon A Time's Rumpelstiltskin

Here is what I learned about high school students: they are smart. They are aware. They know a lot more than they let on. They are exuberant (although a little wary) when given opportunities to be creative. 
When they are interested, there is no stopping them. They are as comfortable with sheets of paper and markers as they are with other forms of more elaborate technology. They are capable of committing to narrative storytelling in a way that is almost uncanny. The stories to which they commit must match the emotional intensity of adolescents juiced on their own energies. The controlled emotions of supernatural or gory tales have immediate impact; the lush, romantic fairy tale is surprisingly effective. Retellings of the familiar Disney Default folk and fairy tales - either earlier, more adult versions or radical re-imaginings- hold these listeners with a combination of familiarity and altered perspectives. Given the opportunity to reconstruct a familiar tale, young adults engage with a will that reveals an understanding of the complex spectrum of human emotion. Their demand for transparency keeps the storytelling honest, and helps create the circle in which narrative energy is personified in the dynamic connection between teller and listeners.  

Janice M. Del Negro, 7/2014

Janice Del Negro is a published author of children's books. Published credits of Janice Del Negro include Passion and Poison: Tales of Shape-shifters, Ghosts, and Spirited Women, Willa And The Wind (Ala Notable Children's Books. Younger Readers (Awards)), and Lucy Dove.

She is also a professor at Dominican University.

BA, Hunter College

MLS, State University of New York at Geneseo

PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Academic Areas of Interest: 

Youth services & programs in public libraries; literature and other young adult & children's materials; storytelling; evolution & evaluation of folk & fairy tales; reviewing & criticism; programming for youth; images of the feminine in folktales

The Last Two Guests! Ah, Summertime!

This summer has been amazing.  The running about.  The nine thousand miles I put on my car.  The insane amount of time I logged on planes.

I have had the most amazing guest bloggers in this space all summer.  I learn so much by listening to and reading about other artists.  If you want to find out who was here and what they had to say, go to the Guest Artist button on the menu at the top of the blog.

Now, on to current matters.  I was at the National Storytelling Network Conference last week.  Fabulous.  I may or may not write about it since so many other people have.  I'll link over to stuff when I'm not feeling quite as lazy as I am today.

Yes, today, I am lazy.  Why?  Well, because my summer is officially done!

I have two weeks to just come down off the travel high and spend some time with my family.

I do have some goodies in waiting, though.

My last two guests in the summer series are yet to come and they are wonderful.

On August 7th, you will encounter a woman I respect the heck out of who is also a wonderful author and teaching artist who is forever trying new things.  She's done improv work, we've seen her in costume at the Renaissance Fair, and she's just gotten into throwing pots.   Some of her books include The O'Dwyer and Grady series.

I actually have a credit for helping her solve one of the mysteries in this series!

She writes for audiences both old and young

Did I mention she was an investigative journalist?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Eileen Heyes!

Eileen Heyes

"I look at the world and the people in it, and I see stories everywhere just waiting to be written. That’s the outlook I bring with me when I visit schools and lead workshops – so I can help students open their eyes to the fun they can have when they sit down to write."

Eileen will share some thoughts about creating biographies for your fictional characters to give them more depth.  Well worth the read.



On August 14th, my absolute last guest of the summer is a woman who became one of my college 'mothers', gave me my very first professional job right out of school, let me crash on her couch, gave me love life advice, has written some fabulous books, is a phenomenal storyteller, is a Dr., a professor, writes reviews of children's books, is a librarian par excellence, and has had my back so many times it isn't even funny.

She's got books on telling stories

I love this book.  In fact, I tell this book!  (With permission of course!)

I tell this one as well!

I am speaking now of my dear friend and force of nature, Janice Del Negro.

Janice Del Negro

The final post in my summer season is from the first person who put her money on the line and sent me out to meet the public.

Her piece is about the power of using folk and fairy tales with adolescents in the classroom, and it is, like everything she does, exquisite.


So, these will be the last two and then I will go back to irregularly scheduled programming in this space.

Happy Summertime!