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This was Storytelling 102

The 2004–2005 Storytelling Workshops

We at the Storytelling Center are very proud of our Workshop series. We all know that storytelling is a vaulable tool for teachers, librarians, and arts educators, as well as for those in business and the professional sectors. So, every October through June, we present tellers who inspire, teach, and help satisfy your hunger for a good tale.

Over the years, we have had numerous celebrated storytellers and cultural educators present workshops for our members and audiences on diverse subjects. They are presented to the public for a small fee. You get to learn from and speak with workshop leaders who are celebrated masters of the craft.

Here is a summary of the workshops held during the 2004–2005 year. All of them were held at the Estonian Educational Society in Manhattan — Estonian House, for short.

Carol Birch

Finding a Story to tell is
the Hardest Part.

October 13, 2004

(As a Center tradition, the October workshop is dedicated to the memory of Lillian Oppenheimer.)

In an engrossing workshop on October 13 (featuring recent storytelling books we may have missed!), Carol Birch introduced us to titles which have received the Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award in recent years. This award is administered by the Westchester Library System, and was named for a former children's services consultant who loved storytelling. As a part–time children's librarian in the Westchester Library System (as well as a renowned storyteller), Carol has been on the award committee since its inception.

Carol brought a suitcase brimming with books and an annotated list of titles which are of particular interest to storytellers, whether for story sources, technique, history or philosophy of storytelling. She talked about the books, read from some, told stories from some, and shared her love of words, ideas and stories, in the warm and passionate way that makes being with her such a joy.

We got to hear a gripping story from Russia about evil and greed, which she urged everyone to use for Halloween. (One of us did, the next day.) She shared a haunting story of escaped slaves ("Walking the Choctaw Trail"), and the charming tale of a reverse curse that turns out not to be what was expected at all!

It was a warm and wonderful beginning for this year's series of monthly storytelling workshops.

Marilyn Iarusso.

John Colligan

How to Support Your Local Storyteller
without Spending a Penny

November 10, 2004

In an evening filled with good stories and interactive learning, John Colligan showed us how to support storytellers who are developing new stories, by giving feedback that respects the needs of the teller and the integrity of his or her story.

Illustrating his presentation with stories that illuminated his points, John argued that education and storytelling coaching both work best when the student/teller is encouraged to make his or her unique contribution in an environment that encourages risk–taking.

Inspired by Doug Lipman's book, The Storytelling Coach: How to Listen, Praise, and Bring Out People's Best (August House, 1995), John led us in responding to three volunteer tellers: Ruth Lesh told a charming Eleanor Farjeon story; Julia Morris added lively audience participation to her adaptation of the classic picture book, Caps for Sale; and Bernie Libster told a compelling original horror story, "True Story from Beyond the Moon."

The challenge to the listeners was to provide practical feedback in ways that kept the tellers in charge. Suggestions were phrased as questions that allowed the teller to decide whether and how to incorporate the listeners' ideas. We in the audience offered our three tellers the gifts of our attentive listening, our appreciations, and our positive suggestions. In return, we enjoyed an inspiring evening and left with skills that will enhance our own work and strengthen the Storytelling Center's swaps.

Rita Auerbach.

Tom Lee

Bright Shadows in Darkness

December 8, 2004

Tom Lee's workshop was billed as an evening of stories that explore the time of year when we pass through darkness and return towards the light.

Tom spent the first part of the program explaining why he could not tell us the stories he had promised. He could not tell the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [a/k/a the story of Dame Ragnell] because of the beheading in it. The recent violence in the Middle East, which has been troubling all of us, made the story too disturbing. All week, Tom had thought he was thinking about an Icelandic story that he expected to tell to us, but he discovered he hadn't been. He felt compelled to tell another story instead — an unforgettable Norwegian folktale about a mysterious companion who helps a young man win a princess. The audience was delighted: The pricess and the hero "frolicked," and the princess' troll–king/lover was wonderfully disgusting.
 
Interestingly, the troll is decapitated by the hero at the end of the tale — proving that Tom couldn't run away from a story that wanted to be told. The story ends with the shocking but satisfying explanation of how the companion came to be there.
 
Tom discussed how he makes stories his own. He feels the story taking shape in his body as he tells it. Tom internalizes the characters' thinking and attitudes so completely that his storytelling has a physicality to it. As a listener and observer, I also felt the story coming through his body, as his shoulders, hands, and head moved in response to the narrative.
 
Tom believes that only the great stories survive. He likes tales with images that take over the imagination and which have moral ambiguity. He particularly likes stories he doesn't understand, and he only tells stories he loves. He believes that the Brothers Grimm's "The Juniper Tree" is one of the most rewarding, poetic, redeeming stories in the world. He charged us to trust the story, trust ourselves, and trust the audience. Go with the rhythm the story demands. He told us that the story one is telling will never be told again in the same way, or with the same audience. Each time, it is a new thing.
 
A demoralizing footnote in an otherwise inspiring evening was Tom's observation that the "No Child Left Behind" initiative is devaluing anything that can't be assessed or measured. He is not sure if he will be able to tell stories in schools a few years from now. What a sad loss that would be for the children who are hearing him tell these powerful stories.
 
Marilyn Iarusso.

Laura J. Bobrow

Rhyme, Rhythm, and Resonance

January 12, 2005

Laura J. Bobrow — a dynamic storyteller, author, and poet based in Virginia — showed us how the use of poetry in a storytelling performance can set a tone, help make transitions, and thoroughly engage an audience. A vibrant and enthusiastic workshop leader, Laura also shared with us some of her award–winning story poems.
 
The title of this workshop speaks volumes for the content. The rhyme makes the stories easier to learn since there is a repeating phrase or song that acts as the story's spine and also gives listeners a part in the story where they can sing or recite back to the teller. The rhythm gives the story a cadence and natural flow that makes the story somewhat easier to tell — and somewhat easier to listen to. A good teller will always strive to discover the rhythms inherent in a story. And resonance is the sound of specific words or phrases that vibrate and ring out to both the teller and the listener in a profound manner. This can be done in a vocal way, through the use of images, or through the specific choice of words and silences. (Sometimes the words not spoken have a deeper resonance than the ones spoken.)
 
Laura offered many examples of rhyme, rhythm, and resonance, and I left the workshop singing one repeated line from "Alakazeenie": "Alakazeenie! I'm not a genie, and I'm glad."

Chad Quartuccio

Creepy Stories to Tell to Little Boys
(and other people)
in the Dark of the Night

February 9, 2005

In February, Chad Quartuccio — the specialist for library work with children at the Staten Island branches of the New York Public Library — was invited to share the creepy stories he tells to children in libraries, schools, camps, and at Halloweed extravaganzas on Staten Island.

He shared wonderfully weird stories that ranged from one about a young man who is cured of his laziness by his encounter with a witch who directs him to take off his shirts, his pants, his flesh, his bones… to a short, startling story in which a young man sends his son to another city to save him from Death… only to discover that Death has an appointment to meet his son in that other city that afternoon. Another winner was the Johnny Moses story about a little girl with red hair who foils a cannibal witch — who likes to eat the earwax from children's ears and the snot from their noses.
 
Chad's low–key, friendly style of telling is a wonderful fit for the disquieting stories he likes to tell. He makes the audience hold its breath in anticipation, yet is reassuring at the same time. Children adore his stories, and so did the workshop audience. One storyteller in the audience said that the program had given her many ideas for telling stories to the young men she encounters in her work. It was a jolly evening.
 
Marilyn Iarusso.

Panel Discussion

Storytelling for Children of Different Ages

March 9, 2005

Professional storytellers Ben Jacobs, Rita Auerbach, and Gerry Fierst discussed their storytelling work and experiences with, respectively, preschool to Kindergarten, grade school children, and teens & adults. Ron O'Reilly, whose storytelling work includes adults and seniors, was the moderator.
 
Among the points that were made were:

• No matter what the age of the listeners, children want to be told stories in a respectful manner.
• You can tell the same same story to the three different age groups, but you must be sensitive to the particular needs and characteristics of that group.
• Not all tellers are right for all the age groups. It is advisable for a teller who doesn't like telling to young children, not to. (It will show in the telling, and not give the youngsters a very good storytelling experience. The same applies to those tellers who are uncomfortable telling to middle and high school students.)

Each teller gave a fifteen–minute introduction on their experinces telling to different age groups. Ben spoke about telling to kindergartners and pre–schoolers, Rita spoke on middle–schoolers, and Gerry spoke about high school students.
 
Then the floor was opened for discussion with the three panelists and Ron O'Reilly moderating.

Paula Davidoff

Storytelling with Teenagers at Risk

April 13, 2005

Paula Davidoff, a New Jersey storyteller, teacher and writer, presented a compelling workshop on her work with at–risk teenagers.

She described the epiphany she experienced when she first started telling stories. Teaching writing to a learning–disabled class, Ms. Davidoff saw that she was losing her students' attention. She started telling them stories. While Ms. Davidoff had always been fascinated by storytelling, she was not prepared for the impact of telling on young people. The experience changed her life.

After some time telling in urban alternative schools, Ms. Davidoff was invited to tell to a group of boys in a detention center. Challenged by one of the boys to explain why she was there, Ms. Davidoff told them the Grimm story of "Bearskin." The metaphor of the soldier who meets the devil was clear to the boys, and the telling offered them an opportunity to think about themselves in a way that was not threatening.

In similar settings, she has found that stories also create community metaphors which give groups common images to discuss the difficult issues in their lives. Story gives kids language, a "way of talking about themselves without talking about themselves," and "happily ever after" offers hope.

Ms. Davidoff's work with story is inspired by the belief that folktales embody the most important issues we encounter in life. In the words of Swami Ananda Coomaraswamy, myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be expressed in words.

Ms. Davidoff now works primarily with teenagers in residential treatment centers and young people in impoverished neighborhoods. Young people who have witnessed and experienced abuse find powerful images in the story of "Demeter and Persephone." In "Theseus and the Minotaur," they find images that illuminate their life experiences.

Asked what kinds of stories work best with the teenagers she sees, Ms.Davidoff suggested fairy tales, myths, journey stories and trickster tales. They are all tricksters figuring out how to survive. With her powerful storytelling and gentle presence, Ms. Davidoff offered us stories to use in our own work and an inspiring argument for the importance of our art.

Rita Auerbach.

Ellin Greene

Stories, Storytelling, and the Human Spirit

May 11, 2005

It was standing room only in the Estonian Center's Blue Room as master storyteller, teacher, writer Ellin Greene connected story to human development, morals, ethics, courage, self acceptance, self understanding and spiritual growth.

Drawing on the writings of Madeleine L'Engle (Language Arts, Vol. 55, No.4, April 1978, "What is Real?"), Ms. Greene reminded us of the basic archetypes found in fairy tales: the younger son, the real princess, the quest, the enchanted beast, and the happy ending. According to L'Engle, by relegating stories and storytelling to the domain of young children, we sacrifice intuition to intellect, and lose our playfully imaginative selves, as well as, paradoxically, great areas of reality.

A student of Piaget's theories of infant and child development, Ms. Greene finds evidence of the importance of story in Diary of a Baby by psychologist Daniel Stern. Following the initial stage of feeling, the infant moves on to self and other awareness, to intention and memory. Expressions of language are followed by story–making and here, through the structure of story, the child defines its experience and creates an identity. To illustrate this process, Ms.Greene recommends Vivian Paley's Wally's Story.

Ms. Greene tells us that the child's enjoyment of story is on two levels: firstly, the close interaction with the storyteller, and secondly, the identification with the younger son who is not afraid to try his own way; the real Princess waiting to have her true self recognized; or the enchanted beast who needs the younger son or real princess to find him and release him from his pain.

Audience members shared memories of childhood stories. One woman identified with the seventh princess of "The Ordinary Princess." Another recalled that, as the youngest child, she identified with the "just right" aspects of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Ms. Greene noted that, although she had been taught that language distinguishes humans from animals, she believes it is story that sets us apart.

To close the evening, she told two stories demonstrating a diversity of telling styles: "The Elephant's Picnic," Richard Hughes' funny tale featuring an elephant, a kangaroo and a kettle; and "Cap o' Rushes," a 19th–century tale also called "As Meat Loves Salt."

Eileen Pally.