Storytelling Is A Joyful Thing

Anyone who has spent any time telling for children has heard this phrase....


- Every time we got in the car they had to listen to your CD. No offense, but I got really sick of hearing your voice! -

There are days when I am getting up at stupid 0'clock to head out to a school, and I think to myself,





If I worked conferences more often or any other type of venue, I could still be asleep! Why does the bulk of my work have to begin at 8:45am?

-As an educator and performer, I know how impactful storytelling can be to brain development, language development, communication, literacy, and empathy...that doesn't mean I have to be the person out there doing it at such a foolish hour of the morning!

Sitting in traffic at 8:30am makes thoughts like this careen around in my head like a pinball.

All of that, of course, is before I get there.

Writing this blog has been an interesting journey for me. Sometimes I get so caught up in the inside/business work of being a storyteller I forget that there is the absolute fun of it. The anticipation of waiting to share a great tale is palpable in me, and often even the audience before we ever begin!

I spend so much time writing about the business of telling and the craft of telling, I don't always focus on the absolute joy and reward of it.

I don't want anyone to think storytelling is an easy, throw away thing to do.
I don't want people to think that there is no work, skill, or craft involved in this art form.

I probably don't spend enough time reveling in the experience on this space. So, today, I will share some of the good stuff.

The Barking Mouse

Antonio Sacre

- I was in South Carolina and one of the Kindergarten teachers asked me, "Do you know Antonio Sacre? For a period of time in my family, his was the most important voice of my kid's childhood. We loved him. We still tell his stories. We were with a family who primarily spoke Spanish when we saw him, and all of the kids fell in love with him. We played his recordings so much, we can tell all of his stories by heart. They are in their late teens now, and they still talk about him and tell his stories.






- I got an email from one of my friends who lives in Kansas who wrote, "Oh my gosh, my husband and I were walking through this park, and we saw an advertisement for storytelling, and we were like, "Hey, maybe Donna will be there." You weren't there, obviously, but we saw this amazing performer. Antonio Rocha? He was fabulous! He was a mime storyteller! We didn't even know that existed. He did this thing where he almost got carried away by a big balloon! Have you ever seen him?"
Do you know this guy named





- A teacher at one of the middle schools in Chicago came up to me as I was packing up to leave, "You came to my middle school when I was in seventh grade. I will never forget it, and today, when I heard you were coming, I was through the roof. I have been talking to my kids about you non stop all week, and they were prepared to be disappointed because they said nobody could be as good as I said you were. When they got back to the class, they were blown away. Now, all they want to do is talk about you. Thank you."

- I've been asked about a whole host of other tellers. They always start with...do you know...and then they launch into the story of where they saw the teller and how important that person was to them and their family.

I don't know all of the storytellers they list, but I am usually familiar with the stories they told.


When I get in front of middle school audiences within about one hundred miles of where I live, I often ask them if they saw me as elementary school kids. Most of them have. They are the easiest audiences. They already like stories, they remember me, and they are anxious to see what we are going to do next.

In the end, they almost always ask for tongue twisters because that is something I do with elementary school kids to get them to start playing with language.




 It is always cool to me when some seventh or eighth grader stops me and says, "Listen to this" and breaks out with a tongue twister. Their next statement is usually something like..."I learned to do that after you did tongue twisters for us."

I've worked with Freshmen in college who've geeked out over seeing me because they remembered me from elementary school. It is quite fun to watch some eighteen year old kid announced, "Epaminandus, you ain't got the sense you was born with!"

Our next door neighbors moved to Texas some years ago. They contacted me last November and told me that out of nowhere, their ten year old started telling Bastienello unprompted. He hadn't heard the CD in years. His fourteen year old brother told it with him. They had a blast in the car. She sent me a recording. It did my heart good to hear it. The audio is really low, but I sat glued to the computer listening to them retell that story with both sass and "bro" language. It was hysterical.


The next generation of people who love stories, support storytelling, and want to be storytellers is moving through our schools. I am honored to be one of the people on the front lines helping them to experience, love, and be excited about storytelling as an art, career, and consumer.

If you work in schools, sitting in front of you is a kid who might one day get up on stage and begin the work for the generations that follow.

From My Scrapbook!

I know this for certain because when I was a Freshman in high school, I sat in an audience and saw a storyteller with a puppet. The show was called The Wizard and Groark. I loved that show. I went up afterwards and got an autograph from the performer.



Many, many years later I was at a storytelling festival in Ocalla, Fl and I could barely contain myself. The fellow who I shared a stage with was none other than Randall McGee. aka The Wizard.



I couldn't wait to tell him that I'd seen him when I was a kid. I couldn't wait to tell him that he was my first actual professional teller. I couldn't wait to admit that the reason I knew that I could do this was because I remember seeing him all those years ago.

Randall McGee and Groark

I remember how excited I was. I can still feel it even as I look at these pics I just posted!


 I get to see that excitement on the faces of so many others.


Storytelling is a joyful thing.



Yes, it is a great deal of work, yes, it is an exhausting business...but it is definitely a joyful thing!




Happy Telling!

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!

How Do I Become A Storyteller? A Common Question

When I started this blog, I made several assumptions. I assumed people who found their way here would already be somewhat involved in the world of storytelling. What did not occur to me was that there would be people who were trying to figure out how to get into storytelling. 

Recently I was on a thread, and a person made the comment, "This is all well and good, but how do you get into storytelling?"

I get this question fairly often when I'm out traveling. People want to know how to become a professional storyteller. They aren't asking how to get to the next level, no, they want to know where to begin.

This is such a common question, it even has a Wikihow page.

Most people who decide to become a professional storyteller have encountered the art and been taken with it. They see a professional up there doing their thing and say to themselves, 'I could do that'. 

Here is one of the best rocking the stage. Go on with your bad self, Donald!

If you get a professional doing their thing, it looks easy. That is their power. Good storytellers seem to just bring the story to life. 

What you don't see is all the work that goes into making it roll off of the tongue. So, if you are just beginning, you don't start at the art point. You have to start at the beginning.

Wikihow offers five steps. I thought I would do the same!

1. Get some stories under your belt. 

You can either tell traditional stories or you can write your own, but you need to know some tales.  Where do you find them? Well, you can google folktales or folklore and take your pick. You'll have to write your own personal material if that is how you wish to go.

Under no circumstances should you tell anyone else's personal stories!!!

As you learn stories, you need to make sure that you are shaping them with your own personal tastes.

Try not to completely copy an existing storyteller. Find you own style.

2.  Next, you must engage in the craft of storytelling

Craft is how you put stories together, and how you present them. This is important, because it shapes what type of storyteller you are, and what types of stories you tell. You will spend a great deal of time in this stage before you ever get to the last step.

There are many ways to work on your craft.

a. Go to university and study storytelling.

Karen Chace did a list of universities where you can study storytelling

I went to Northwestern University and studied under Rives Collins. Call your local community college and find out if they have a storytelling program. Go to festivals and conferences given by storytelling organizations and take workshops and classes. 

b. Find storytellers in your area.

You most likely live in a state where there is a storytelling guild. You might live near one and not know. Go to a guild meeting and get to know your local storytellers. Listen, get feedback, and consider what people have to say. The link above is for the National Storytelling Network organization that has catalogued guilds for every state. Click on your state, find out where your guild is, and enquire if there is a group near you.

David Novak is going to be teaching a two and a half day workshop in NC through the North Carolina Storytelling Guild! Click for the details!

David Novak is a wonderful performer and teacher. Catch him if you can!

c. Read. 

I cannot stress enough that you should read about storytelling. Parkhurst Brothers, and August House publishers have a great number of books about storytelling.

d. Tell! 

You must find opportunities to tell your stories to the audiences you wish to serve. Whether adults or children, you must find willing guinea pigs. Find out if you can volunteer to tell in your local public library. Find open mic nights. Do what you have to do.

3. After you are confident that you've got some stories ready, you feel comfortable telling them, and you are ready to roll out your carpet and invite the paying public into your world. You have to tell them you are alive and offering a service.  That brings us to the most annoying part of this whole thing. You have to start the onerous part of the whole process.

MARKETING

There are lots of books about marketing. I did mention you should read, right?

4. The Business of Storytelling.  I haven't written much about this on this blog, but the thing that goes here is the business of storytelling. This is the part where you schedule, produce contracts, set prices, cold call, put together email lists, contact people, and make connections with others. I don't do this part of the business, but it is an essential part of making this job work.

While all of that is happening, you get to the last step in the process.

5. Working the Art

You are now up on a stage somewhere telling stories. If you get to this point, just keep going. There are perils, pitfalls, joys, moments of conquering the world and being conquered by it. 

Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather rinse repeat! This cycle of gathering material, crafting it, working the material, engaging with new audiences, marketing to new places, and working the art is not a fait accompli...it is a cycle.

So, there you have it. Some really basic steps to becoming a professional storyteller.

Is this a really simplified list? Yes. Will it be quick and easy? No, probably not, but it is a roadmap to becoming a professional.

I leave you with some of my favorite tellers.

Peter Cook! I do love this man!

Good Luck! We'll look for you out there! 

The Storyteller's Toolkit: The Body or To Move or Not To Move

The Storyteller's Toolkit is a simple way to talk about the elements that storyteller's use to present a story.  These do not include puppets, props, costumes or anything extraneous.  You can certainly use all of those things as a storyteller, but they are not standard tools in the toolkit.  




The basics in the toolkit are as follows.

Voice:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Eyes:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Face:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Hands:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Body:


Easy enough.  In keeping with my new policy about blog entries.  We will deal with each of these one at a time.  Today's selection deals with the body in storytelling.

Let me explain my point of view about movement and storytelling, and then proceed with the rest of the post

I searched, but didn't find much in the way of using the body as a storyteller.  Many sites rolled the body in with 'body language' which covered every item in the toolkit except the voice.  There were some articles about dance, lots about mime, and there were some tips on a couple of sites, but nothing really addressed the subject in the way I was seeking.


Here is my take on the Storyteller's body….



I believe that when you move all over the stage you break the illusion built with your words.  As long as the audience can imagine you moving around, you don't need to move.  I believe you become less effective the more you move about the performance space.

The reason I believe that wandering about while telling is problematic?  Moving your body everywhere scatters the energy you are creating and throws it off in all different directions, lessening the impact of the story and distracting the audience from the narrative.

The advice I am going to offer, the observations I will make and the comments I will submit are based around the points I've just made.  You may or may not agree with my take on movement and storytelling, and that is what makes our art form so varied and interesting.

On any number of occasions, I've taken storyteller's aside and suggested they attempt to tell while standing still.  Most of them swear they can't do it.  The story causes them to move.  The ones who have gone away and tried it have all contacted me in shock at how big a difference it made in the telling.  The one thing you notice right away is how much more control and power the story has when you ground it.


Six years ago I was performing a version of the Squeaky Door.  It is a tale about a kid who is frightened of the sound his bedroom door makes.  His grandmother misunderstands the source of his fear, and runs back and forth to the barn putting all sorts of animals in his bed in order to comfort him.  My version is silly, ridiculous, and an audience participation riot.  After the tale was done, I had an inservice with the teachers.  One of them interrupted my introduction and announced that she thought it was hilarious that I was running all over the stage.  The other teachers laughed out loud and agreed.  They'd seen me! They saw me running back and forth to the barn, dragging the animals across the stage, and running back and forth to the kid's room whenever he started yelling.  They saw it all.

I let them laugh about it for a few minutes, sharing their favorite moments, and then told them I hadn't moved an inch.  I'd stood in one spot in front of the mic the entire time.  Silence.  Confusion.  They didn't believe it.  They argued the point.  They knew what they'd seen. I pointed out that the mic was on a stand and I hadn't taken the mic out of the stand the entire time.  How would they have heard me so clearly if I'd been running around the stage without the mic?  They didn't know.  They realized I couldn't have been running all over the stage.  They still didn't believe I'd been standing still.  Then, I informed them that it was perfectly possible for them to have seen me running all over the stage, but despite that, I hadn't moved.

You can take up an amazing amount of space without moving.  Let the audience see the story, and they will see every part of it.  The key is to employ the other elements of the toolkit to give the illusion of movement.  

The story does not happen in front of you, it happens all around you.  As long as you don't break into the space around you and trample it, the story can take place in that space.  The second you actually move, you stop the imagination from filling the space with images.  We need to see the story coming out of you in all directions.  If you are moving in all directions, the story can't expand to fill the space.  Instead of being someone surrounded by wild images, you are a single person moving around an empty space.  The first is powerful, the second just gets tiring for the audience.


If you get out of the way of your stories, they have a chance to take the audience to places even you can't see!

Of course, not everyone wants to stand still.  If you are going to move, do it on purpose!  Choose when you are going to move.  Don't let your feet decide where your body is going!  

So, here are some fabulous storytellers making the world shake from the space around their feet.

Peter Cook!





Geraldine Buckley!





Carmen Agra  Deedy





Len Cabral




Andy Offut Irwin




Was there anything that these stories lost because the storytellers either sat, or simply turned their bodies, or adjusted themselves?  Did they need to move further than they did?  Did they need to show us beyond what they did in the spaces around their feet?

If you've never tried standing still, give it a shot.  What you will find is that you will have to focus much more heavily on your face, voice, eyes, and hands.  Translate your nervous energy into power.

Stand still and hit your audience with everything you have!


Empower your stories!  Empower your audience!

Happy Telling!

The Storyteller's Toolkit: Facial Expressions

The Storyteller's Toolkit is a simple way to talk about the elements that storyteller's use to present a story.  These do not include puppets, props, costumes or anything extraneous.  You can certainly use all of those things as a storyteller, but they are not standard tools in the toolkit.  




The basics in the toolkit are as follows.

Voice:  If you missed the post just click here.

Eyes:  If you missed the post just click here.

Face:

Hands:  If you missed the post just click here.

Body:  If you missed the post, just click here


Easy enough.  In keeping with my new policy about blog entries.  We will deal with each of these one at a time.  Today's selection deals with facial expression.

The best thing about writing a blog has got to be the research aspect.  I spend lots of time reading what other people suggest, think, and discover, and then I get to decide what I think, suggest or have discovered about it.  The information about the use of facial expression is no different.  So, let us discuss what I found out about using facial expressions from hours of jumping around the web, and ferreting out the best practices I could find.  

For starters, lots of the advice I got was about using facial expressions with children.

Kid's Encyclopedia

Tell the story with your face

Why Facial Expressions are Important

Then, I found a number of reference that simply said it was important.

"Jackie Torrence is proof of the power of facial expressions."

Storytelling and Communication:  Discourse in Deaf Communities

Here is an article about using close ups of facial expressions in eLearning situations

I found this WikiHow page that gives a step by step look at how to tell a story!

The last article, but hardly the last reference, is about cultural differences in facial expressions that I found both fascinating and informative.

Perception of facial expression differs across cultures.

After all of the reading, I can state that I definitely think using facial expressions with children is a good thing, but I also recommend it for adults.  They enjoy it as well!  Yes, facial expressions are important.  Using them does enhance storytelling.  Saying that doesn't make it an easy thing to do!

The coolest thing about facial expression is that just as babies learn vocabulary and figure out how to respond to the world by watching facial expressions and listening to the tones of our voice, people continue to pick up language in this manner right up until the time they hit puberty…after that the pituitary gland kicks in and everything switches over to sex, and you have a whole different set of things to manage!

So, let's start with a master storyteller who knows how to work a face!  Peter Cook, one of my absolute favorite storytellers.  He has mentored me on any number of occasions about nonverbal communication.  Watch this man's incredible face, though, I know it will be hard because everything he is doing is fascinating!







Some Basic Uses:  Your face offers you a chance to share a kinesthetic link with your audience.

Bring characters to life - Work very specific character faces.  Whenever the audience sees the expression they will be able to more fully engage and follow the story.  examples:  The squint, the big eyes, the mouth over to one side, the wrinkled nose, the annoyed expression


Create Atmosphere - Your face tells the audience the mood or atmosphere of the story.  examples:  scary, exciting, suspenseful

Asides - Your face lets us know when you are talking to us directly.

Set Tone - Is this story funny, serious, scary?  Your face can let us know what sort of ride we are about to have.

Slow Motion Expression  - Allowing your face to slowly settle into an exaggerated expression.  This allows the audience to go on that physical trip with you.  examples:  fear, anger, joy, disgust, discovering you are in pain.

Change the mood of your stories - Your face gives the audience an indication that the story has moved on to another beat.  examples:  relax, be worried, everything is okay, something horrible is about happen, somebody just fell in love

Foreshadowing - Use your face to inform your audience of what is coming next!


Here is a telling of The Laughing Place.  Brer Rabbit's laughing face is the key to the whole tale.





Having said all of that, I know that not everybody is anxious to make faces on stage.  Some folks feel quite inhibited, some feel foolish, some people aren't naturally expressive, and find the very idea of making exaggerated faces uncomfortable.

If you want to add expressions, the best way to begin is to sit and imagine expressions.  Happiness, sadness, anger, excitement.  Imagine what you think it looks like, and then see if you can make your face 'feel' like it is excited or happy based on the image you have in your head.

Some people like to use a mirror.  If you want to look at yourself in a mirror as you make the expressions, go right on ahead, but there are lots of people who do not.  Me, personally, I do not.  I find that when I practice with a mirror, I become distracted by things other than 'does this expression convey sadness?'

I practice the expression until it 'feels' right, and then I try them out with friends, family, or in stories.  I ask, 'does this work here?'

Start small if you aren't using much expression.  Work on techniques for transitioning and mood if you have managed the basics.  Your face is never neutral, we are learning something from it every second you are performing.  Choose what we are learning.  Create the atmosphere on purpose.  Lead us through the story by choosing facial expressions.  Craft your face to reflect your tales.

Empower yourself.  Empower your stories!

Happy Telling!