There is a story that a human life is like a man riding a donkey with a tiger walking behind him. The man lives in fear of the tiger. Sometimes he goes faster, sometimes he goes slower. Sometimes he looks and feels more. Sometimes he goes to sleep on the donkey. The man is always afraid that if he turns and looks at the tiger too closely the tiger will eat him. But the truth is the tiger does not care whether the man looks or not. Death waits for us all – while walking right behind our shoulders.

This denial of death, allowing us to find joy and satisfaction in our lives, is the same denial that troubles environmental storytellers. Human beings need that denial; we need not to look too closely at the facts of life as they are stated so often. But we also need to recognize that denial of the environmental disaster we have been living out for the past five hundred years is not really useful, as demonstrated by precedent.

The advantage that storytellers bring to this dilemma of how to talk about environmental problems is that we have a whole set of tools to get around the denial built into the human experience. We are able to build worlds and bring our audience to them. We are able both to educate and create awareness in a single action. We can use fairytales and myths to talk about hard things.

Using storytelling it is possible to get Americans to see that environmental policies are above politics. Storytelling can allow us to move past knee jerk responses of tired political campaigns to understanding that the environ- ment belongs to us all. In storytelling you can only take an audience to where you have been. Oral narrative is dependent on the story- teller’s development. You have to educate yourself about the actual environment to be an environmental storyteller – not just the theoretical, but what really is there. There is no replacement for time spent outdoors in the real world. To be an ecological storyteller, to be an environmental storyteller ultimately is to be someone who knows the ecology, the environment and storytelling.

So for those of you who may consider yourself storytellers but not eco-tellers, here is my invitation: spend half an hour a day sitting quietly in the woods, in a park or on the lawn near your home. Within a year you will see how quickly this experience builds you into a qualified environmental storyteller. We have no shortage of need for more eco-tellers.

Eric Wolf, a.k.a. Brother Wolf, has an M.S. in Environmental Education from Lesley University. He lives and gardens in the Vale, the oldest (1940s) residential nonreligious land trusted community in the United States. He also produces “The Art of Storytelling”at http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/category/environmental-storytelling/

This Article was previously published in the Late Spring Issue of Story Times, Florida’s Storytelling Organizations Ezine.

Press Play to hear Laird Schaub speak about The Application of Story to Group Facilitation and Community Living on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf

Laird Schaub Writes...
"As a consultant, I'm often asked to work with groups that consider themselves stuck. In helping them understand how they got there and the choices they have to move through it, I always start with the stories-the way in which each person makes sense of their reality as a member of the group. Invariably, the stories don't all match. Sometimes the realities are mutually exclusive. Still, I believe them all and do my best to help everyone in the group understand how each person's actions make sense from that person's perspective. Once I've established a bridge of understanding among the various players, it's then possible to build a new story, where each person's reality is now a little bigger and can hold aspects of other's realities as well.

The key to this is to not ask a person to change their core beliefs, change their personality, or change the way they work with information. I just ask them to change their story, and then to adjust their behaviors accordingly. I ask them to make shifts that are in their interest; ones that will help them be better understood and be less triggering for others. I ask them to make changes that will help them build relationship.

Often, people in the group will be in pain. Being stuck doesn't feel good, and if you cannot see past your own story it often appears that others have taken actions that are purposefully hurtful or disrespectful. Ouch! In this sense, pain is a symptom of a problem, and very useful in helping to diagnose where the stories are not in alignment. Because you want to be treating causes and not just symptoms, it's important here to resist the impulse to alleviate the pain as your priority. It's a better strategy to view the pain as an important source of information and explore it for the purpose of surfacing the clues you'll need to build a story where everyone can feel held and respected."

Brief Bio:
Laird has lived 36 years at Sandhill Farm, an income-sharing rural community in Missouri which he helped found. He homesteads there, has raised two kids, and has developed a flair for preserving food and celebration cooking. He is also the main administrator of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, a network organization he helped create in 1986, and that serves as a clearinghouse of information about North American communities of all stripes.

In addition to being an author and public speaker about various aspects of community, he's also a meeting junkie and has parlayed his passion for good process into a consulting business on group dynamics. He's worked with about 75 different groups around the US, many of them multiple times. His specialty is up-tempo meetings that engage the full range of human input, teaching groups to work creatively with conflict, and at the same time being ruthless about about capturing as much product as possible. In 2003, he pioneered a two-year training in Integrative Facilitation that he's delivered four times and is now marketing across the continent.

You can read his thoughts on his blog at http://communityandconsensus.blogspot.com/

I will not share or give away your email address.

And don’t forget to subscribe by iTunes or your browser to The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf so you can get bi-weekly inspirations from Bother Wolf direct to your desktop. Read the info on the right to find out how. It’s free and it’s super simple.

Press Play to hear Ben Nind speaking on how Storytelling is Essential to Community Health and Life on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Storytelling Is Essential to Community Health and Life.

Do we really have to justify why this is so? Are we so removed from ourselves as purveyors of stories that we actually need to rationalize, in some manner or form - why storytelling is essential? This is an odd question because it means that I have to somehow divorce story from the human experience and that is an impossible task.

The glue that holds all of the pieces together is story past, present and future. Birth, marriage, divorce, life, death, addiction, celebration, grief and victory are woven with stories in every window and door that we pass in our day to day existence. Without stories there is no community, there is no activity and the world is just one big cold ball of rock hurling through the blackness of space.

Is storytelling essential to community life? Say no more. Just listen and let me tell you a story..............

Bio

Ben NInd grew up in the theatre community of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. From a young age, his mentors provided him with a passionate love for community theatre. In the end, it was this passion that drove him to drop his cubical world and enroll in the Theatre Studies Program at Red Deer College in Alberta. In 1994, he graduated from the English Acting Program at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal and continued training with Silamiut Theatre of Greenland, through a generous Fox Fellowship grant. Ben returned to Yellowknife in 1995 to found Stuck in a Snowbank Theatre where he wore the hat of actor, director, playwright and mentor working throughout Canada and the circumpolar world.

In the spring of 2004 he became the Executive and Artistic Director of the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, a position he still holds. He continues to promote the development of all performing arts in the NWT. His passion lies with the stories of the Canadian North. They are the core material from which his brand of theatre magic is cut. His belief in the stories, and his commitment to the talented men and women who tell those stories, keep this unique and powerful northern theatre movement alive and relevant for contemporary northern audiences.

Press Play to hear Lloyd Arneach speak on a Cherokee perspective on Native American Storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Biography

An enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, Lloyd Arneach was born and reared on the Cherokee Reservation in Cherokee, North Carolina. He learned his first legends from two storytelling Uncles on the reservation.

From 1970 to 1990, Lloyd traveled throughout the state of Georgia, lecturing on Cherokee history and culture. This was done in his spare time while working for AT&T's computer department in Atlanta. In 1990, he added storytelling to his presentations on culture and history and in 1993 began a full-time career as both storyteller and historian.

Lloyd presents his stories in a style that is humorous, informative and extremely moving. Lloyd's stories range from the "old stories" of the Cherokee to contemporary stories he has collected; from creation stories to behind the scenes of "Dances with Wolves." He tells stories of different Native Americans: Floyd Red Crow Westerman; Billy Mills, an Olympic champion; a young Cree Indian girl with no stories to tell; and a postmaster on the Papago Reservation. He shares historical stories from a variety of Native American tribes. Some of these stories are difficult for Lloyd to tell because of the strong feelings associated with his experiences as a Native American.

Lloyd lectures on Cherokee history and culture in schools, universities, libraries, museums, historical societies, and civic groups. If requested, he can bring a number of Native American artifacts to show and demonstrate. Lloyd also conducts workshops on Native American storytelling, building appreciation of Native American culture and what the stories mean to the cultures from which they grew.

He has told stories at the Kennedy Center, National Folklife Festival (Washington, D.C.), the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.), the Winnepeg International Storytelling Festival (Canada), festivals, schools, universities, Pow-Wows, theaters, and other venues throughout the United States. His CD Can You Hear the Smoke? features stories and legends adapted by Lloyd. In 1992, Children's Press published his book, The Animal's Ballgame, based on one of Lloyd's favorite Cherokee animal stories. During the summer of 2006, Lloyd performed in the Cherokee outdoor drama Unto These Hills - A Retelling. In the of summer (2008), Lloyd once again performed in the Cherokee outdoor drama Unto These Hills - A Retelling.

He has told stories on the Discovery Channel.

Lloyd has finished a new book of Cherokee stories,Long-Ago Stories of the Eastern Cherokee, that was released in early 2008.

Lloyd now lives in Cherokee, North Carolina.

Press Play to hear Christine Carlton and Jenni Cargill have a conversation on Australian Storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #092 Christine Carlton and Jenni Cargill 2 Australian Storytellers for $2.23 Examining the Skeletons in the Cultural Closet.

Written by Jenni Cargill-Strong

Eric asked what does it mean to be Australian? Ask 20 different Australians these questions and you might get 20 different answers.
Christine explained and I'd agree, that it can be hard to define the Australian identity, because we have such a diversity of cultures. Many Australians arrived in recent decades since World War 2. The Aboriginal population is less than 2% and most Aborigines live in isolated inland rural areas, whereas most Australians live in cities on the coast, so most Australians don't have much direct contact with Aboriginal people or culture.

I would agree with Christine now that yes, if you were to generalize, as a people, we are mostly laconic, relaxed, friendly and we have a great sense of humor. Like any country, we also have our shadow, our racism and unresolved issues. However at least Aboriginal issues are much more on the table to be openly discussed now, our Prime Minister gave the apology* to the stolen generation** that many of us had been waiting for and progress is slowly happening with land rights.

Despite all the struggles of Aboriginal Australians, as we both mention in the interview, we now have not only very strong traditional Aboriginal art, dance and storytelling, but the most wonderful flowering of contemporary Aboriginal dance, film, art, theatre and even comedy that keeps building momentum.

I loved Eric's' reference to -the elephant in the room'. The apology was an important step in our national history and in the development of our identity, because it acknowledged one of the big elephants that had been sitting in the room of the Australian psyche "“ the facts and the pain of the stolen generation.

I feel that stories that connect us to country are also very important, especially in the context of the level of social dislocation and the state of the environment. A Maori*** friend told me about the Maori concept of your -tangata whenua' which translates to your lineage and the land you come from or -the ground you stand on'. It makes you stronger to clearly know and claim who you come from and the land you come from. She said in traditional Maori culture, you get shown the plot where you'll be buried when you are young and you visit that spot regularly, so you also know the ground you'll end up in.

In Australia, this national sense of -the ground we stand on' is still evolving. So when you ask a non-Aboriginal Australian to tell an Australian story, it's not as straight forward as it may be for an Aboriginal person, a Celtic person, a Hawaiian person or a Japanese person- assuming each of these people are still have connected to their cultural stories.

Non-indigenous Americans must face similar issues, but I imagine since you've been there a few hundred years longer and you have a larger body of American folktales to draw from. New stories are slowly emerging in Australia, woven from and reflecting the many cultural strands that make us up. The version Christine told of -Stone Soup' is a great example. I am currently working on a new collection of environmental stories to record that reflect connection to country, connection the Earth and connection to the rhythms and the seasons.

The gift of our Australian situation is that we are not weighed down by any rigid traditions- so many strands to weave with and we have much room to evolve, experiment and discover. Let the adventure continue!

The Apology' refers to the speech our current Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd made in 2007 to acknowledge and apologize for the pain and suffering created for the stolen generation by government removal policies.

The Stolen Generation is a group of Australian Aboriginals who were taken from their families according to Australian government policy between 1910 and 1970. While it is unclear exactly how many children were taken from their homes, some estimate that the numbers could be between 1/3 and 1/10 of all Indigenous Australian children born during that time." See more at http://www.actnow.com.au/Issues/Stolen_Generations.aspx

*** Indigenous people from New Zealand. Moari's refer to their country as Aotearoa (pronounced Ow-tay-ah-row-ah), which means -Land of the long white cloud.

For people interested in Australian Aboriginal films, there have been some amazing films that have come out of the Australian Aboriginal community like "Samson and Delilah'; Rabbit Proof Fence' and -Ten Canoes'. If you come to Australia and you are interested in Aboriginal culture, I recommend in particular that you check out "The Dreaming Festival" which happens in our winter on the east coast see www.thedreamingfestival.com.au

Jenni Cargill-Strong
www.storytree.com.au

Christine Carlton
President NSW Storytelling Guild, Australia
http://www.storytellersnsw.org.au/

Bio
Jenni Cargill-Strong, Director of the Storytree Company is a storyteller with unbridled enthusiasm and passion for her art. Teachers often remark after a show, that students who seldom listen well, sit spellbound. Jenni employs a wide repertoire of dramatic skills and a beautiful singing voice to hold her audience. Her training includes a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Sociology from the University of Queensland, classical singing training and a diploma from the Drama Action Centre in Sydney. There she studied clowning, improvisation, dance, singing, mask, mummers, percussion and workshop facilitation specialising in storytelling. Her professional experience was gained in over twelve hundred schools in Australia and New Zealand.

Jenni's first CD "Wonder Tales of Earth and Sea" claimed a special award from the National Library of Australia and she has now two new albums: "The Mermaid's Shoes" and "Stories to Light the Dark". She has performed for ABC national radio as well as ABC TV's '7.30 Report'. She has performed and presented workshops for the Bennelong Program at the Sydney Opera House, The Powerhouse Museum, the National Storytelling conference, the Woodford Folk Festival since 1993, Byron Bay Adult Community Education and The Byron Bay Writers Festival 2004.

Bio
Christine Carlton believes in the power of Storytelling to engage, affirm and transform the human spirit. For more than twenty years Christine has worked as a freelance Consultant, Facilitator and Educator in the areas of Story, Drama and Creative Arts in Education, Business and Community Development.

She travels throughout Australia and overseas offering a variety of opportunities for individuals and organisations to tap into their own creativity to gain insight and direction for their lives and their communities.

Christine lectures in Story and Drama in Education at the University of Western Sydney , facilitates leadership and team-building processes, offers teacher inservice, storytelling workshops, reflective retreats and is regularly called upon to provide creative leadership and group facilitation at national and international conferences.
Currently she is president of the Australian Storytelling Guild(NSW), a member of Australasian Facilitators Network, Australian Institute of Professional Facilitators and a number of professional associations that support and promote the transforming power of Storytelling.

Press Play to hear Michael Cotter speak on farming the heartland of American storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #057 Michael Cotter for $2.23 Farming the Heartland of American Storytelling.

Brief Bio
Michael Cotter is the first national storyteller to perform personal stories on the main stage at Jonesborough, TN. He is a semi-retired farmer and winner of the 2009 oracle award for excellence in storytelling.

Press Play to hear Elisa Pearmain speak about a Teaching Forgiveness through storytelling on the Art of Storytelling.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #088 Elisa Pearmain for $2.23 Teaching Forgiveness through storytelling.

Written by Elisa Pearmain...
Forgiveness is central to the success of relationships, and is an integral part of the emotional, spiritual and even physical healing process, and yet it is poorly understood. Forgiveness offers an opportunity to look at and relate to our stories of wounding in new ways. It calls us to see those who have hurt us with more complexity and empathy. It guides us to forgive ourselves, to untangle ourselves from wounding experiences and the role of victim, and ultimately to live more fully. Stories and storytelling work can help us to understand forgiveness more deeply, and to traverse the forgiveness process with more support and imagination.

In this podcast Elisa Pearmain focused on forgiveness for individuals rather than reconciliation between people or groups of people. She shared a few stories that illustrate aspects of the forgiveness process in action. She discussed some of her personal experiences with forgiveness. She shared some of her observations of the forgiveness process in her therapy practice, and how often at bottom we discover the need to forgive ourselves. Elisa discussed how retelling personal experience in folk and fairy tale can help in this healing process and how the "narrative reframing" or "shifts in perspective" are at the heart of forgiveness, and various techniques for shifting story perspectives she uses. Elisa talked about forgiveness in the grief process, and some of the reasons why it is hard to forgive. All this and your questions in one hour under the wise guidance of our host!

Bio

Elisa Pearmain began her career in storytelling as a dancer who was trying to tell stories without words. In her late 20’s she was she was challenged in a dance theatre workshop to tell a story combining words and movement about an experience in which she found empowerment. Elisa began to shape the story of her experience as a battered woman in her first relationship after college. By stepping back into the shoes of the scared young woman who tiptoed around her boyfriend, and by reconnecting to the voice she didn’t have to speak her truth, she discovered that she hadn’t deserved the abuse and that when she shared her story others were grateful and wanted to share theirs. Thus began a deep curiosity and belief in the healing power of storytelling.
Elisa was soon leading groups of women to shape and share their stories and to learn from them. Her next project was to gather stories from Vietnam Veterans. She shaped one long story based on the stories she heard from them called “The Defoliated Heart,” and shared it with teens and adults. She learned so much more about wounding and trauma, and the role of story in the healing process.
Elisa’s career in storytelling has led her through storytelling residencies in the Boston Public Schools, as an adjunct faculty at Lesley University for 14 years, teaching teachers to integrate storytelling and as a professional storyteller in schools and libraries and churches.
In 1998 Elisa published her first book, Doorways to the Soul: 52 Wisdom Tales from around the World. This is a collection of short wise tales from many traditions and ways of connecting more deeply with them for personal and spiritual growth. In 1998 she also received her Master’s in Counseling and began to work formally as a therapist. For six years she worked on a psychiatric unit of a local hospital, often leading groups using story. For the past six years she has been working part-time in an out-patient clinic with teens and adults. She finds that almost every client she sees is struggling with issues related to forgiveness, and that being able to forgive one self and others in central to healing, personal and spiritual growth.

She also presents programs in schools related to character development and bullying prevention and has a second award-winning book called, Once Upon a time: Storytelling to Teach Character and Prevent Bullying. Lessons from 99 Multicultural folktales for the K-8 Classroom. (2006)

To learn more about Elisa’s work and other publications you can go to her website www.wisdomtales.com

Press Play to hear Baba Jamal Koram speak the responsibility of being a storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #085 Baba Jamal Koram for $2.23 Storytelling as Responsibility.

Baba Jamal Koram is a storyteller in the African American Griotic Traditions, he is a dedicated practitioner and teacher of the spoken word traditions and is a respected leader in the world of storytelling. Baba Jamal is a groundbreaking storyteller, educator, folk drummer and organizer. He is a past president of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc. and is a 2001 recipient of its prestigious Zora Neale Hurston award. Called a storyteller's storyteller, and a Griot's Griot he continues to travel across the nation sharing his stories and his presence with thousands of school children and their families. Baba Jamal holds the B.A., M.S. and Ed.S. degrees, and is married and the proud father of children, grand children, and godchildren.

This master storyteller uses his stories to inspire, encourage, and to uplift the positive growth of our children and in our communities.

He has said:

"My South Carolina great grandmother Mary would say to her grandchildren, - Bring me a cool glass of water, and I'll tell you a story. Then she would proceed to tell them one of those traditional African American Gullah stories, about Bruh Rabbit or one of the many folkloric characters... I follow in her storytelling footsteps. . .Call me if you have a cool glass of spring water."

For More information on Baba Jamal Koram check out his website: http://www.babajamalkoram.com/

Press Play to hear Eric Wolf speak how you can support the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Pre-loaded Apple Ipod with 100 episodes For more details on the Ipod Click Here. Order now for $438.00.

For Immediate Release Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf is an internationally recognized podcast listened to in 142 countries worldwide with over 50,000 total lifetime downloads, 13,000 distinct listeners, and 8,000+ downloads in the last thirty days. With over 88+ storytellers interviewed on the show this website is rapidly becoming the worlds premiare source for teaching storytelling online. Through this encyclopedia of storytelling techniques a listener can improve their communication skills and get a complete storytelling education.

Heather Forest, Elizabeth Ellis, Judith Black, Jay O’Callahan, Andy Offutt Irwin, and many other storytellers are interviewed on how to use storytelling techniques in performing for and teaching storytelling to children. The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf has draw guests from all over the world and created an amazing storytelling education resource of storytelling techniques that is unmatched on the World Wide Web. All episodes available right now online for immediate listening and download in the commercial lower quality version for easier down load.

Individuals wishing to pre-purchase this commercial free ipod can pay $338.55 till July 27th. On July 27th the price for a preloaded ipod with 85 shows will increase too $394.65. The Apple Ipod allows listeners to scan easily to any point in each of the 85 hour long shows.

Eric Wolf is the host and producer of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf show witch is dedicated to supporting the teaching storytelling worldwide by providing access to storytelling techniques and a grounded storytelling education for anyone.

For More Information go to:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/category/press-release/

For a Full List of Episodes go to:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/past-guests/

For more Information Contact:
Eric Wolf (937) 767-8696

Press Play to hear Kim Weitkamp speak about reaching troubled youth through storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #084 Kim Weitkamp for $2.23 Reaching Troubled Youth through Storytelling.

Kim Weitkamp writes…
For 15 years I saw first hand the amazing power of story. The right story deposited at the right time is like a time release capsule. I cannot count how many times one of the teens that I was working with would come back to me, after I told them a story, and they’d say, “Hey, you know that story you told me the other day? Well, I’ve been thinking about it.

When I would hold group discussions, a story would bring together opposing sides. When I was digging into a person’s heart, trying gently to unearth the pain that was causing them to act out in anger, a story would be the trowel. When I looked into the angry hurting eyes of teen, a story would prove to them that I understood and that I had been there too.

I loved working with at risk youth and found great satisfaction in using story to bring healing. It was a worthy calling. But, after 15 years, it wore me out physically and emotionally, so I retired. From youth work, not storytelling. You cannot retire from what you are, you can only retire from what you do. So what I was had to release itself in another form.

I pulled out journals that I had kept over the years and started going over stories that I had written for no other purpose than to make me smile. I started sharing those stories with people outside my family and friends circle. After a few years of puttering around state festivals, schools and libraries, I branched out and before I knew it I was telling full time. But inside of me there was a struggle going on.

For years, I had used my stories to help teens who were suicidal, self-mutilators, violent offenders, lost, lonely and at their breaking point. I had used my stories for a worthy cause, but now I was telling for the sheer pleasure of it. I was using my stories to entertain and to make people laugh. I was at odds with myself. How could I go from one extreme to another? Was I selling out? Was there a purpose to what I was doing? I was constantly asking myself these questions.

One evening I was telling in a tent that was draped in white lights. The night was cool and still and the audience was perfect. I was in the middle of one of my favorite stories, right at a part where I pause for effect, when I had the most beautiful experience. As my gaze swept across the crowd I could see each face individually, expectant and ready. It was like slow motion, a hard thing to explain really, but they were there with in the story, not in the tent. They were waiting to turn the corner with me and see what I saw and laugh at what I laughed at and smell what I smelled and taste what I tasted. They were there with me, in my story, walking with me.

It was at that moment I knew that what I was doing was just as worthy as my previous work. No matter how long I have them, no matter how large or small the group, no matter how funny, sad, silly, or heartbreaking my story is: it’s a miracle.

Each time I tell I have the privilege of taking my listener away from this world. For a few minutes I provide a much needed break from the rent payment, from the knee pain, from unemployment, from the wayward child, from the death of a loved one. It is a form of medicine, therapy, whatever you want to call it I don’t care. I only know that it is good. And to be a storyteller is a worthy calling.

After that experience I went to Jonesborough for the first time and in the glass shop on Main Street I found an art print that brought tears to my eyes. The artist had drawn a picture of a woman and beside it had written: “In the midst of the song she heard every heartbeat and knew she was a part of something bigger.” Nough said.

Bio of Kim Weitkamp…
Written by Diane Pelegro

Kim Weitkamp used applied storytelling for over 15 years within her work with youth. She has been a guest speaker, keynote and storyteller at camps, retreats, conferences, libraries, schools, leadership summits and festivals throughout the country. After overseeing various non-profit programs in four states she retired from youth work three years ago.

At that time Kim decided to take her love of humor and storytelling to the stage, and she has been warmly received. Her impressive performance list as a newcomer includes Timpfest in Orem, Utah, the Exchange Stage in Jonesborough TN, the historic Lyric Theater in Virginia, the Northeast Storytelling Festival, the Storytelling Festival of the Carolinas, The Smoky Mountains Festival in Pigeon Forge TN, The Colonial Williamsburg Storytelling Festival and many others. She holds residencies at the Montgomery County Museum, the JuneBug Center for Storied Arts and the Lewis Miller Art Center.
She currently serves as President of the Virginia Storytelling Alliance and is the Virginia State rep for the National Youth Storytelling Showcase. She is also a commissioned performer for the Virginia Commission of the Arts. Kim has written and performed vignettes and stories for the PARfm Radio Network morning show which has a 3 state listening audience. She has penned numerous children’s stories but is most noted for her original and humorous Pitscreek Series, which has resulted in two CD projects.

Kim is the founder of the Wrinkles Project, a nationwide program that helps raise awareness of the treasure we have within our ’seasoned citizens’ and the stories that they have to share. Kim’s first CD, “This Ain’t Bull It’s Fertilizer” was her freshman release. Her new self titled CD, shows her growth as an artist and writer. The stories are solid and well written and her telling style is casual and warm. The collection is a beautiful example of storytelling at its best. Recently Kim has added the dynamic of singing original songs to her performances. They cozy right up to the story and add depth and additional appeal to her telling.

Kim’s genuine care for the audience, love of story, and natural talent has alloted her a solid position within the arena of spoken word artistry.

To Learn more about Kim’s work check out her website at http://www.justkissthefrog.com/

Press Play to hear Elaine Wynne who is a clinical psychologist speak's on uses healing stories with children on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Elaine Wynne was a Storyteller first. Stories flowed freely around the kitchen table and from an Anishinabe/Irish man who lived on the farm where she grew up. She told stories to her young children and then in the early 70's finished a degree in Storytelling and Image Development for Non-Profits. She began to perform as a storyteller and then in 1982 got a degree in the Psychology of Human Development (Storytelling and Healing as a main focus) and became a Licensed Psychologist.

She worked six years at Mpls. Children's Medical Center and developed a story called "The Rainbow Dream", used by children and adult cancer groups for many y ears. Later, her work using storytelling to teach self management to 2-5 year olds with asthma (with Daniel Kohen, M.D.) was published in the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis, and in numerous medical and psychological journals in Europe. R esearch on using stories and games as teaching methods showed significant reduction in emergency clinic and hospital visits over a two year period.

Elaine has performed and taught storytelling (and storytelling as a healing art) in Norway, Sweden, England, Ecuador, Japan, and Singapore, as well as in numerous places around Minnesota and the US. Last year, she presented a performance workshop at the 12th annual Pediatric Emergency Management of Humanitarian Disasters in Cleveland. She won Grand Prize with her husband (Storyteller Larry Johnson) at the Tokyo Video Festival for a storied exchange between children in St. Paul and London. She and Larry conduct and teach about Cousin Camp which they developed with their 13 grandchildren.

You can read more about her in this cool article in the Daily Planet

Press Play to hear Loren Niemi who was interviewed by Eric Wolf on Honoring Elders and Apprentices on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Loren Niemi writes...
I've been a storyteller for 30 plus years and yet in so many ways I feel like a beginner learning how to do now, what I learned how to do then. It is "LOL" a very "Zen and now" approach to storytelling: beginner's mind.

At this point in time, I understand clearly and fondly what a gift I received when I came to storytelling. The gift of generous mentors - specifically, Ken Feit and Rueven Gold - who took a "Zen and now" approach offering friendship, access, who posed and (sometimes) answered questions, encouraged and gave permission for me to find and develop my own voice rather than adopt theirs. They welcomed me wherever they were telling and often made space for me to tell a story at those gatherings.

They were prolific in suggesting, cajoling, handing me books and lists of books to read that would ground me in the storytelling traditions. It is one of the laments I have about a significant portion of those coming into storytelling now, that they do not read (or feel they have to read) widely and deeply. My mentors understood the value of reading anthropology, mythology, theater, folklore collections as well as the importance of listening to stories and storytellers of all kinds from many traditions to enrich our understanding of the power of this art and the breadth of its reach across cultures.

They are dead now, but the stories I heard them tell still resonate for me. What they taught directly and indirectly has served me well over these many years. Many of the tellers (Marshall Dodge, Ray Hicks, Gamble Rogers, Jackie Torrence, Duncan Willimson) who were here at the beginning of the American Storytelling Revival are dead now but I was fortunate to have heard them and cherish the fact of it.

As the generation that is the root of our storytelling culture pass, I also understand that I have been at this long enough to be able to mentor others. I welcome the opportunity. It is consistent with the tradition of storytelling apprenticeship. It is both a responsibility and a pleasure to nourish "tongues of fire." It is not a matter of ego or authority, but an understanding that if storytelling is to flourish I have a vested interest in passing on to those who would take it, the gift of craft and knowing.

Inevitably I will pass. But stories, perhaps even some of mine, will abide and I would hope that as I have honored my elders I will have shared the joy and terror which is storytelling with my apprentices.

Loren Niemi Bio

"I began as a child fibber
but soon discovered that I was less interested
in telling lies than I was in improving the truth."

Storytelling is also the only sensible explanation Loren Niemi can offer for forty plus years as a community organizer and public policy consultant, trainer and Lobbyist working with non-profit groups to articulate their dreams, shape their messages, and resolve their conflicts.

Loren has also spent thirty as a professional storyteller, creating, collecting, performing and teaching stories to audiences of all ages in urban and rural settings. He has served as the Humanities Scholar in Residence for Northern Minnesota, the ringmaster and tour manager of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre's Circle of Water Circus, and is one third of BAD JAZZ, a performance art trio with Michael Sommers and Kevin Kling, experimenting with theatrical and storytelling forms. His work has been called "post-modern," "on the cutting edge of storytelling," "with the dark beauty of language that is not ashamed of poetry." It is, as storyteller, Kate Lutz said, "a sensibility that owes more to the New Yorker than to the Old Farmer's Almanac."

He is the co-author, with Elizabeth Ellis, of Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories, from August House Publishers and the author of The Book of Plots, on the uses of narratives in creating oral and written stories, published by Llumina Press.

Loren has a BA (Philosophy and Studio Arts) from St. Mary's College (Winona, MN) and a MA in Liberal Studies (concentration: American Culture) from Hamline University (St. Paul, MN). He teaches Storytelling in the Communications Department of Metropolitan State University (St. Paul, MN) as well as providing organizational and corporate message framing, storytelling branding and community building workshops around the country.

Loren was one of the founders of the Northlands Storytelling Network, a five state storytelling education and advocacy organization, and spent four years as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Storytelling Network, the 3000 plus member advocate and promoter of America's storytelling revival. He was the 2005 recipient of the Oracle award for national leadership and service.

Press Play to hear David Novak who was interviewed by Eric Wolf on storyteller’s compass using narrative as guide on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

The Scattered Brain

by David Novak

“I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and T.V.’s
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there”
David Bowie, Five Years

I’m dreaming about a legless blind man when the radio alarm wakes me. In the short time it takes me to crawl to the bureau to turn off the radio (an arrangement designed to get me out of bed) I hear the DeeJay tell me that 5% of men surveyed admitted to wearing women’s underwear. I drift to the kitchen to feed the cat and dog and pour the coffee and juice. I go to the front door to collect the morning paper which informs me of the multimillion dollar judgement against O.J. and of an area magnet school which teaches children how to play the bagpipes. By the time I step back inside, my son is awake and Darkwing Duck is “getting dangerous” on the TV. I’ve been awake for less than 30 minutes and already I’m drowning in a sea of information, images and stories.

The day is far from finished. Everything is far from finished. I feel like my life is in the hands of an insomniac channel-surfer: unfinished stories in constant collision with one another adding up to one story: life today. It is all so scatterbrained. I worry: what am I adding to the noise as a voice telling stories in the thick of all this? Who am I to enter the fight for everyone’s attention? What is the point of storytelling in the technologically determined culture of today?

Exo-Brain

Technology enhances us: clothes enhance skin, glasses enhance eyes, wheels enhance walking. Such enhancements extend our physical bodies outward. Our techno-bodies can “see,” “hear,” and “reach” farther than our bio-bodies. We technologically express our bodies outward, forming an exoskeleton of clothing, cars, and houses. Inasmuch as our communica- tion media express images, ideas, and informa- tion, we express our minds outward too, forming an exo-brain. The exo-brain is the scattered brain.

In The Global Village (1989) Marshall McLuhan and Bruce R. Powers discuss the way technology affects cultural change. New technology, they suggest, begins as a distinct figure set against the current cultural ground. Eventually that technology becomes the new cultural ground. As our new technologies become assimilated they reform the ground which determines our culture. McLuhan and Powers:

“Media determinism, the imposition willy-nilly of new cultural grounds by the action of new technologies, is only possible when the users are well-adjusted, i.e. sound asleep.”

To be “well-adjusted” in this sense, is to be accepting yet unthinking; to be an open receiver like a well-adjusted antenna. For such media determinism to be possible, it helps to have a populace that is illiterate, anti-intellectual, inarticulate, and emotionally reactive. The well-adjusted user is hungry (literally and figuratively); dissatisfied with what he has (”been there, done that”); afraid of the unknown (”brand x”); afraid of the outside (the only safe places, we are told, are the places where you find an approved point-of-sale that accepts the right credit card); accepting without thinking (uncritical and thereby open to shallow rhetoric and “sound bites”); has a short attention span (being therefore less likely to scrutinize merchandise or ideas very closely); and is impulsive (reacting to ersatz emergencies from headline news to one-day-only sales.) In short, the well-adjusted user lets the scattered brain do its thinking. The scattered brain directs our attention to what it considers important, leaving what does not interest it to be forgotten.

If this is the culture we live in, it is also the culture that welcomed a revival of story- telling. Why?

A Gentle Reminder

I have just finished a story program for a family night at a local school. The occasion is a combination of book fair and turn-off-the- tube week. During the program I presented some cats cradle figures and used them to tell Jack & The Beanstalk (see Storytelling World vol. 2, no. 1, Winter/Spring 1993.) Children come up to me, chiming the giant’s refrain and asking how they can learn more about string figures. Adults come up to me with a slightly different response. For the children, this is new information. For the adults, this is old information that was lost until they were reminded of it. I will call these two responses: minding and reminding.

First of all, minding. The telling experience brings a wealth of stimulation to the young listener in the form of images, rhythms, patterns, sequences, emotions, and ideas. The aural stroking between real-time-and-place teller and real- time-and-place listener is something that our sciences have begun to verify as essential to brain growth in early childhood. The recognition of this importance is bringing a new validation to the storytelling art in a culture obsessed with technology.

4/18/97

AP-Washington – In a day of “talking about baby talk” and how brains grow, President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton offered parents simple child-rearing advice: Songs and storytelling fire up infants’ brainpower.

When we tell stories to children we are truly minding them.

Next, reminding. Adult listeners at storytelling events are often surprised by the recognition that storytelling evokes. Listeners tell us, “Gee, I haven’t thought about that in ages…” “I’d forgotten what it was like to…” “I remember when…” and so on. A wealth of dormant memories and experiences are invited up from the deep past to the surface of our present minds. Such storytelling reminds us, literally re-minding: giving us back our minds. It is as though we have lost cognizance of who we are amidst our scatter-brained lives.

What’s going on? Why are people having little epiphanies in the company of storytellers? I believe that there is something missing in our modern media saturation that the storytelling revival is providing us. Something primary to who we are. Something that our daily distraction has lead us away from.

In a prophetic essay for Harper’s in 1938, E. B. White wrote:

“Clearly the race today is between loud speaking and soft, between things that are and the things that seem to be, between the chemist of RCA and the angel of God. Radio has already given sound a wide currency, and sound “effects” are taking the place once enjoyed by sound itself. Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote. More hours in every twenty-four will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images – distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar than their originals.”

These days we are enchanted by the Elsewhere and attend to matters “distant and concocted” at every turning. Admittedly, storytelling itself advertises the Elsewhere: “Once upon a time, long ago and far away.” But there is a difference. The medium is the message and the very medium of the told story carries a message distinct from other media. There is a different kind of Elsewhere being advertised by storytelling. We are urged to look away from that which distracts us to that which has become the most remote: the primary and the near.

Version x.x.x

Each new software package is incrementally defined as version x.x.x of an incomplete and never-finished idea-set. Are we cracking the silly idea that a thing is made and maintains its shape immutably? That meaning is constant? All things change. All things are in some state of iteration, always shifting. Set in stone? It is the property of stone to diminish. Organic? Living? If so, then growing and evolving. We live between the last version and the next version. Storytellers have always known this. But the market place has a vested interest in keeping things unfinished in order to keep the customer. “Keep the customers satisfied” becomes “dissatisfy the customers in order to satisfy them.” This is how Scheherazade survived: with perpetually unfinished stories. We are sold software and systems that are not ready and then charged for the more complete (but still unfinished) version, paying for the privilege of beta-testing someone else’s product. While we rush ahead to get the latest version, all new and improved, we are littering our lives with all the old, obsolete versions. Our lives are cluttered with the hard and soft wares we abandon on impulse as our scattered brains chase the latest hot item. The more we neglect the past, the more we will be burdened by it. How did grandma get to be sick and alone in a wolf-infested woods, anyway?

Story Technology

Stories, as technology, enhance memory and understanding. Storytellers are a sensual, human medium. Modern electronic media pretends to respond to its users, but is hopelessly remote and uninvolved. The user who stays too long at the hearth of such media may suffer a kind of sensory deprivation. The storyteller brings touch in the form of aural stroking and warmth in the form of being truly present. Neuroscience now confirms what ancient voices have always known: storytell- ing is important emotive and cognitive technology. Storytelling as true virtual reality, transfers experience while massaging the listener and influencing growth.

Storytelling is re-minding the user at the center of the scattered brain; directing attention back to the primary and the near. Storytellers are strengthening our ability to endure long, considered thinking: to listen, to reflect, to discern, and to feel deeply and knowingly. McLuhan and Powers continue: “There is no inevitability where there is a willingness to pay attention.”

Within our scattered brains we seek something, hungrily, in the bright distracting lights around us. Yet we are perpetually dissatisfied. We are like Nasruddin searching in the sunlight for the gold coin he knows he lost in the dark.

Clockwise

So busy were we
moving papers around the room
we failed to see the East
and the dawning of the day.
So worried were we
at the tallying of doom
we failed to see the South
and the brightening of the bay.
So certain were we
at the importance of our task
we forgot to note the West
and the fading of the light.
So lost were we
we forgot to ask
the sirens of the North
the meaning of the night.

Light & Dark

There is a house in Mailbu, halfway up a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I was a guest in this house when I was in Malibu to tell stories. The evening of my performance, my hosts had left early to prepare for the event and I was leaving the house to join them. Out of habit, I checked to be sure I was turning off the lights as I left the empty house. I noticed a bright light coming from the bathroom and reached in to flick the light switch off. The switch was already off and I was momentarily confused as I tried to determine the source of light in the room. Then I realized that the light I was seeing was coming from the late sun shining low over the ocean and through the bathroom window. I was trying to turn off the sun. I had somehow forgotten that a room in a house can be lit by sunlight.

Today our manipulation of light puts the day/night cycle into our hands – or perhaps more correctly – the illusion of the day/night cycle into our hands. Lights are on at all hours and there are many times when we begin our artificial days long after the sun has set. The time to turn out the light is the time of cessation: bedtime, sleeptime, endtime, deathtime. “Turn out the light, then turn out the light” remarks Othello before extinguishing the candles and then extinguishing Desdemona.

So what does this have to do with a storyteller turning off the sun on his way to tell stories? In his introduction to the Pantheon collection of Grimms Fairy Tales, Padraic Colum writes: “The prolongation of light meant the cessation of traditional stories in European cottages. And when the cottages took in American kerosene or paraffin there was prolongation. Then came lamps with full and steady light, lamps that gave real illumi- nation. Told under this illumination the traditional stories ceased to be appropriate because the rhythm that gave them meaning was weakened.” The prolongation of light has pushed back the shadows of the hearth where, once upon a time, stories were told. Further, the prolongation of light has weakened the “rhythm that gave them meaning.” That rhythm, simply stated, is the time for light, the time for dark, the time for work and the time to tell stories.

We have prolonged the light: we can work whenever we want (and more than we wish) and we have prolonged the seasons: I can buy fresh corn in February. We have changed the ancient rhythm. Is there only cacophony? Or is there a new rhythm?

“Today, while raking the front lawn, Todd said, “Wouldn’t it be scary if our internal clocks weren’t set to the rhythms of waves and sunrise – or even the industrial whistle toot – but to product cycles, instead?”

“We got nostalgic about the old days, back when September meant the unveiling of new car models and TV shows. Now, carmakers and TV people put them on whenever. Not the same.”

Douglas Coupland, Microserfs

The Hearth

The tradition of the hearth is still among us and played out regularly in many technologies. When we go to the cinema, popcorn in hand, to watch shadows flicker on the wall, we are practicing a human behavior as ancient as the first domestic fire. (As an aside, it is interesting that popcorn is so intimately linked with the cinema ritual. Certainly, on the American continent, popcorn has been enjoyed by fireside story listeners for a long time!) There is something soothing about sitting in a dark theatre. The cinema is a communal hearth creating adhoc communities that exist for a few hours and then are scattered. The television set and the computer screen provide the hearth of the modern home. This hearth is available at all hours. We can bathe in its stories and images, from waking to sleeping, whether the sun is shining or the moon is full.

For a long time now, the modern hearth has maintained the broken rhythms of the scattered brain.

Reversal

McLuhan and Powers describe the cycles of technology as moving through four phases: Enhancement, Obsolescence, Retrieval and Reversal. For example, the automobile en-hances travel, obsolesces the horse and buggy, retrieves walking as recreation, and reverses into the inefficiencies of the traffic jam.

The modern hearth brought the Elsewhere into the home and rendered the need to be out there obsolete: we could stay home and still be in the Elsewhere. We could, as The Firesign Theatre told us, be in two places at once and not anywhere at all. We were brought indoors to look out of doors. The hearth still functioned as a hearth: it was the organizing principle of the home. But the rhythm of this hearth belongs to the scattered brain. The technology that enhanced information and cultural unity is reversing into insanity.

The insanity of the scattered brain is driven by an insatiable appetite. If storytellers are not careful, they stand to be consumed by that same appetite.

Appetite

In the storytelling revival we are fond of drawing sharp distinctions between “our kind of storytelling” and other story media. The thing we don’t often admit is that we all serve the same appetite.

Our bodies have certain basic appetites. Today we are able to satisfy those appetites to excess. We suffer illnesses from our over consumption of fats, sugars, and salts, and have learned the importance of a balanced diet and exercise in order to maintain our health. Similarly, we have an appetite for images. Today we are able to satisfy that appetite to excess.

Stories are rich in images. When we tell stories we are feeding that same insatiable appetite that consumes T.V. radio, cinema, billboards, magazines, etc..

Are there consequences to a surfeit of images? Are there illnesses of the mind and the soul that can result from too many images, all cluttered and confused?

Less is More

It is easy to say that what the world needs now is more storytelling. But what if what the world needs now is less storytelling?

Traditional storytelling was often restricted to certain seasons and certain times in balance with the life of the community. Taboos against telling stories out of season were (and still are) common. If we are genuinely concerned about the health of our storytelling culture we will have to come to terms with the notion that there is a time to tell and a time to be silent. In a way, we try to do that with efforts like “turn-off-the-tube-week.”

The idea of less storytelling is a heresy, perhaps. My intention is to challenge some of my own assumptions about the relationship between our current storytelling revival and modern technology. I think there is a need for more of certain kinds of storytelling. Yet even as we are serving that need we are in danger of losing our direction and succumbing to the rising confusion around us.

The point is: the appetite for image is insatiable and it is being served at a feverish pace throughout our culture. Storytellers such as myself, who are on the verge of the entertainment industry, are in danger of being consumed by the scattered brain. Doing so we may become famous for 15 minutes, but we may also cease to be true storytellers and render ourselves obsolete.

What is the relationship of the storyteller to the other storytelling media? Is it simply that of the story-producer? (I’ve got a story to tell and a story to sell.) When you put a storyteller in front of a camera and broadcast that storyteller, you turn that storyteller into another TV program. The entertainment industry looks at the storyteller and sees one of two things: a writer or an actor. The media looks at the storyteller as a kind of product. If storytellers wish to get involved in the entertainment industry (and why shouldn’t they, considering the celebrity and the remuneration) they will have to come to terms with the voracious appetite for story that drives the industry. If the storyteller becomes merely a story-product, something essential will be lost. For the real art of telling stories is concerned not so much with being the producer of the unique story as with understanding when to tell and when to be silent and how to match the right story with the right listener at the right time. In short: the art of telling stories requires a good sense of rhythm.

To tell, we know, means to report; but we must remember that it also means to discern.

Wayfinding

“The Spider Woman taught us all these designs as a way of helping us think. You learn to think when you make these.”

-Navajo teenager speaking to folklorist Barre Toelken regarding string figures.

Consider the metaphors which abound in the new technology: Net Web Mosaic Link String. These are the first technologies. They describe pattern and complexity. These are the constants of the human experience, still alive within the mutable modern media. We are finding our way in complexity like Theseus in the Labyrinth. Many of the current video games concern themselves with wayfinding in mazes and worlds where the rules are unknown and waiting to be discovered. Does the mind get stronger from the exercise? Or lost, in Spiderwoman’s web?

“Wayfinding is a set of principles. An art. And at the center of the circle of sea and sky is the wayfinder practicing the art, trusting mind and senses within a cogni- tive structure to read and interpret nature’s signs along the way as the means of maintaining continuous orientation to a remote, intended destination.”

Will Kilselka, An Ocean In Mind

The new cultural ground now brings the center back to the user. The home video recorder breaks the broadcast schedule cartel and allows viewers to determine when they watch. The personal computer takes the next step: allowing us to watch when we want and to broadcast what we want. Control of the technological hearth is coming back into our hands. With it comes all the confusion and chaos of “the second Tower of Babel” that Victor Hugo describes. In response to this chaos we are developing more and more powerful “search engines” to help us navigate the madness.

The same need that brought about the search engine has brought about the storyteller. The art of the storyteller is the art of the wayfinder. The teller gives us the cognitive strength and the story constellations that we need to find our way. In keeping the ancient rhythm, the storyteller is here now to help us stand once again at the center and reorient ourselves to ourselves as well as to one another. The storyteller is minding and reminding the scattered brain.

Sources:

An Ocean In Mind by Will Kilselka University of Hawaii Press. 1987.

Introduction to The Complete Grimms Fairy Tales by Padraic Colum. Pantheon Books. 1944/1972.

The Dynamics of Folklore by Barre Toelken. Houghton Mifflin. 1979.

The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century byMarshall McLuhan & Bruce R. Powers. Oxford University Press, 1989.

Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. The University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. HarperCollins. 1996.

Notre Dame of Paris by Victor Hugo. English translation by John Sturrock. Penguin Books USA, Inc. NY, NY. 1978.

One Man’s Meat by E. B. White. Harpers Magazine, vol. 177. October, 1938.

Spiders and Spinsters by Marta Weigle. University of New Mexico Press. 1982.

Teleliteracy by David Bianculli. The Continuum Publishing Company. 1992
–
David Novak

A Telling Experience
“Finding ourselves together telling stories.”

PO Box 15122
Asheville, NC 28813
(828) 280-2718
www.novateller.com

Press Play to hear Janice M. Del Negro who was interviewed by Eric Wolf on revising feminist folk-tales: naming the women. on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Dr. Janice M. Del Negro writes
When Eric and I talked about a topic for this interview, he asked me what was I passionate about? I am passionate about naming the women.

That being said, I was reluctant to use the word “feminist” in the title of this podcast. The word “feminist” is a trigger word that elicits, in many people, a strong emotional response. Since I agree with Mark Twain – “the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug”- the choice of the word “feminist” was problematic, because nearly everyone has a distinct personal definition of that particular word. Eric bypassed that concern, however: “people will search ‘feminist’ online,” he said to the library school professor. So here we are, “Revisioning the Feminist Folktale,” and I am not sure that two people on the planet have the same definition of what “feminist” means, never mind folktale, or oral tradition. So I’ll stick to passion.

I am passionate about retelling folktales. I am passionate about excavating old tales, tales that have already survived for centuries, for emotional truths that resonate with contemporary listeners. There is no definitive version of a folktale, no “original”; we can point to the earliest remembered, written, or preserved version, but not to an “original.” Folktales change over time in order to survive, and re-telling folktales for present-day listeners is a contemporary offshoot of what is popularly understood as the oral tradition.

Tales come to us differently today than in the past. A handful of contemporary American storytellers can say they heard folktales from family or friends, tales that were handed down orally, from mouth to ear, but many of us who retell folktales first meet the tales on the page. Sometimes the tales work just as we find them; sometimes they resonate oddly, indicating currents beneath the surface. Those currents offer an opportunity to retell from where the teller stands now, instead of from where the story stood then.

My stand includes my gender. I am a woman. I am fascinated by the women in folktales, not just the women characters, but the women storytellers. Many of the tales we have were collected by men operating within the social mores of their times. The stories these good men chose to collect and the manner in which they collected them were filters through which the stories travelled, affecting the tale’s content and presentation. I look at a folktale so collected and I want to know: what isn’t there? What would the stories be like if the women were telling them to each other in the kitchen, while the collector was making notes on the polite version in the parlor? Those are the stories I want to tell, and since no one collected them in quite that way, I make my own. Filtered through my own experiences, I try and make an old tale new.

Stories may be static on the physical or virtual page, but for as long as the storyteller is telling, the story has blood and breath. Every retelling of a folktale, imbued with the individual blood and breath of the storyteller, is unique. The storytelling community recognizes this in a practical and concrete way: there are many popular conference and festival programs in which several tellers elect to retell the same folktale, just to show what is possible.

I am enormously interested in the fact that many female storytellers choose to retell traditional tales from points of view not always represented in collected or anthologized versions of folktales. Milbre Burch, Elizabeth Ellis, Susan Klein, Barbara Schutz-Gruber, Megan Wells, my own students (and too many others to name even with unlimited bandwidth) approach folktales through their own artistic processes. I cannot speak to the specifics of anyone’s process but my own, and even my process is malleable; the process changes with every story, because every story speaks differently to every teller.

JMD

Janice M. Del Negro, PhD.
Author, Educator, Storyteller

Janice M. Del Negro is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, where she teaches Storytelling, Children’s and Young Adult Literature, and Foundations in Library and Information Science. Professor Del Negro did her doctoral work at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Del Negro has been a featured speaker, storyteller, and workshop leader at the National Storytelling Festival, the Allerton Conference (”Stories: From Fireplace to Cyberspace”), the Illinois Library Association, the Bay Area Storytelling Festival, the Illinois Storytelling Festival, the Fox Valley Music and Storytelling Festival, the Champaign Public Library Children’s Literature Festival, and many other celebratory events. She has spoken and conducted workshops on various aspects of children’s literature and publishing, storytelling, and reading motivation for teachers, librarians, parents, and other educators in a variety of settings, including the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the State Library of Illinois, the North Carolina State Library, and the University of San Diego.
Del Negro’s first picture book, Lucy Dove (1998) won the Anne Izard Storytelling Award; her second picture book, Willa and the Wind (2005) was an ALA Notable Book, and an Honor Book for the Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature from the Bank Street College of Education in New York City. Her recent collection of supernatural tales for young adults, Passion and Poison, published by Marshall Cavendish in 2007, received starred reviews in both Horn Book and School Library Journal.
Del Negro has performed and lectured extensively in libraries, schools, and community centers throughout the United States. Her specialties include retelling traditional folktales, reading motivation through literature and storytelling, and transformation stories, with a gentle emphasis on women and ghosts. Her first recording, Journeywomen and Ghostly Passages, was released in July, 1991; her most recent recordings, Romantic Wonder: Tales of Love and Magic, and Shadow’s Sisters: Shapeshifters, Wraiths, and Spirited Women, were released in April, 1999. She is currently working on a new recording entitled Fortune’s Daughters: Folktales and Ghost Tales, to be released in 2008. Del Negro has reviewed for Booklist Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, and School Library Journal, and is currently reviewing for Booklist.
She has served on both the Newbery, Caldecott, and Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award committees. In 2004-2005 Del Negro served as chair of the 2005 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award committee. and subsequently served as chair of the 2007 Caldecott Award Committee.
Del Negro was formerly the director of the Center for Children’s Books, a special collection of children’s books located at the University of Illinois. Before taking her position as Center director, she was the editor of the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, a monthly review journal of books for youth. Del Negro went to the University of Illinois from the State Library of North Carolina, where she was a consultant for children’s services and public libraries throughout the state. Prior to this she worked for fourteen years as a children’s librarian for the Chicago Public Library, including five years as Assistant Director of Children’s Services.