Conference Reflections: Liz Nichols

Why does Liz look like
Jaguar? Keep reading!

Liz Nichols got lost in the 398 (Folklore & Mythology) section of the public library at age ten, and hasn't found her way out yet! Liz is a professional storyteller, educator & Certified Laughter Leader, and was a presenter at the 2012 National Storytelling Conference, sharing her work as a TimeSlips™ facilitator, a creative storytelling method for people with dementia or memory loss. You can learn more about Liz's storytelling at her website, www.liznichols.net.

 I have been to 4 NSN Conferences over the past 15 years and enjoyed each in its own way. Of course it’s great to reconnect with folks and feel continuity, but for me discovering something or someone new and different is always the highlight.

At this year’s Conference one thing that was new to me was the programming of swaps and fringe performances concurrent with the workshop sessions. The idea of missing a workshop to attend a swap or fringe was tough for me, but I did it several times, and on Saturday afternoon I hit the jackpot. I’d already picked up “gig postcards” for various Fringes (just that self-promotional practice felt like the wider theater arts world permeating the storyteller atmosphere), and I couldn’t resist the sight of Christopher Agostino in the hotel hallway outside his session space, prepping the biggest, most colorful, most artsy box of face paints I’ve ever seen. When I heard the NYC accent from my hometown, that clinched it.

The show was called “Before Cave Walls... The Story on Our Skin”. Here’s what Christopher’s website (http://www.agostinoarts.com ) says about what he does:

Agostino & Co. Performing Arts presents exciting, innovative performances and entertainment for family audiences. We employ storytelling, movement, clowning, masks and costumes, sound and text, and "Transformation! Facepainting" to create original theatre which is both thought-provoking and entertaining for schools, theatres and events. Our "Transformation! Artists" are regularly seen at events and parties throughout the New York area turning thousands of people each year into fantastic works of art.

About 25–30 of us sat mesmerized as he started with a lecture/demo on the human history of self-transformation through mask and body art, calling up volunteer after volunteer to be painted as he talked. Then he wove several stories in, some traditional and some in a folktale mode that he and his kids had created – and he used us as his canvas to show characters like jaguar, snake and lizard, and settings like tropical island and African savannah.

While the performance itself was terrific, even more fun was the way those of us who volunteered became an instant family of sorts. Some of us decided to go to dinner together at a nearby restaurant, where we got lots of stares and some great conversations. Even Charlotte Blake Alston got up on stage for her Oracle Award presentation duties in her face paint, and at the reception that followed it was surreal to chat and sip wine, slipping in and out of the awareness that people seeing me were actually seeing Jaguar instead.

The larger importance of all this for me boiled down to a couple of insights:

1)   That it took an “oddball” experience for me to make a very special connection with a group of people who didn’t know each other at all before the conference.  It transcended the usual categories we fall into.

2)   The value of truly opening up our storytelling world to allies and friends with different backgrounds and identities – those for whom “storyteller” is a secondary aspect of their art and work.

Christopher told us that he had not been sure he would be welcome—he wouldn’t have come except that his Fringe application had been picked out of the hat. I’m glad to say he got a great response. It was an example of what Bill Harley talked about in his very thought-provoking closing address—that for the broader world, storytelling may be better recognized and valued as a “seed art” than stand-alone. And that rather than always complaining about that, we should see it as a positive, as a bridge.

Conference Reflections: An Open Letter from Camille Born

Camille Born (Mahomet, Illinois) became a professional storyteller when she realized that her skills in telling personal anecdotes, sharing historical tidbits and giving her younger brother a life-long fear of closets could all be put together in a career. She was delighted, at age 50, to finally find out “what she wanted to be when she grew up”.  Besides telling folk tales, she writes original historical stories for performance. 

Learn more about Camille at her website: http://couldbeworsestories.com/

An Open Letter to My Storytelling Guild and Storytellers Everywhere:

This is a cool idea: https://www.facebook.com/notifications#!/StoriesInTheStreets/info by Andrea Lovett of Massachusetts.

And now, I am stepping onto my soapbox. (you've been warned)

Lots of times, as individual storytellers and as a guild, we lament about being asked to appear at events where the crowd is "just passing by." We want a seated crowd, good sound, etc. etc. etc. All the keynote speakers at the 2012 National Storytelling Conference talked about the need to build our audience—and to do it in whatever way we can; even for free. (not all of the comments in the keynotes were cheered by the audience). From young audience members will come future audience members and future tellers. We need to spread the word about storytelling to the public in general, to as many people as we can, in order to grow our audiences for future gigs—paid, "free-will" or otherwise.

To grow storytelling—and of course, get more work for all of us—we need to be bringing stories to people wherever they are. If there's a good idea out there, we should replicate it. I bet we even all have good ideas of our own. Yes, we all have done free work and really want to be paid. Me too. To get paid, we need people to show up. How can we expect people to show up to concerts—especially adults—if people don't know what storytelling is?? I did tell stories at the Champaign Farmer's Market last summer... and maybe only to one family each time, and maybe only 2–5 minutes stories, but it did spread the word. I did have a follow up visit from someone who heard me there. I did hand out brochures to adults passing by who said, "I never thought I would be so interested in a fairy tale." What I did was spread the word about—gave people a taste of—storytelling. Maybe some of those people showed up at your events. Who knows?

Telling at a farmer's market, or on the steps of the courthouse, or at an event when people are just passing by isn't "the best" for us, or for showing off our profession. If the goal is spreading the power of Story, however, those type of opportunities shouldn't be missed—especially if the reason for missing is "that's not how it should be done." Below, see the picture and post from Massachusetts teller Karen Chace who with two other tellers told to lines of people waiting to get into a park!

When next we gather—or perhaps at a meeting just to discuss possible events—I would like us to consider some "out of the box" functions. Why? because of all the above reasons and because: 2 years ago, I appeared as part of 40North's [Champaign County IL] Arts Council program in downtown Champaign, telling in the evening on a street corner. And then I told them, "y'know, telling to people just walking by doesn't work for storytelling..." and I've never been asked back. And now I see that there's art performances on the street corners of downtown Champaign every Friday night this summer: dance, fire breathing, magic, music, spoken word. Maybe if I hadn't been so rigid about "what storytelling needs" I would have been asked to participate this summer.

We all make our own choices, and do what we see is best for our careers, and our profession. I'm committed to jumping out of the storytelling box more often. Just call me Jack.

NEXT STEP: A guild in France is telling stories poolside this summer! What "out-of-traditional-storytelling box" places have you told at? Have you ever "taken it to the streets"? Where might you tell next?

Screenshot of Karen Chace's Facebook page used by permission. Photo copyright 2012 by Andrea Lovett, used by permission.

Conference Reflections: Lorna MacDonald Czarnota

Lorna MacDonald Czarnota is a professional storyteller based in Buffalo, New York, who specializes  in healing story. She  is the founder and Executive Director of  Crossroads Story Center, Inc, a not-for-profit reaching at-risk youth through storytelling. In 2006, the National Storytelling Network honored Lorna with an Oracle Award for exemplary leadership and service and significant contributions to community through storytelling. The following post originally appeared on Facebook. It is reprinted here with Lorna's permission.

Follow Lorna on Twitter @StoryLornaMac, and learn more about Lorna at her website, http://www.storyhavenstudio.com/

 Reflecting on Bill Harley's keynote address

I came to storytelling to share my stories and started by familiarizing myself with its history. I spent years studying this art and how it was used for entertainment, education, spiritually, for dissemination of knowledge and as a means for keeping the culture of a people. I told stories in all those ways.

I came to a deep understanding of the art of storytelling and how story is structured, as well as the significance of the storyteller in a community, small and large. I was called to story for healing and like others, I continue to learn.

In the beginning, I believed I would only be successful as a storyteller if I was recognizable on the "big" stage. Yet venues like Jonesborough and others continued to elude me. I wondered if I would ever be successful and at times thought about quitting. But there came a day when I asked this, with somewhat of a whine, to two of the storytellers who had the frustratingly recognizable name I thought I could not achieve. Those two tellers were David Holt and Jim May. I was a shadow, a speck compared to them and I found it frustrating. I cannot remember their exact words to me but I know when they were finished I left feeling like I had received a beat-down. They didn't give me the coddling I had expected, and thank goodness! That moment, and a little more ripening on the vine, changed how I viewed myself and my work, and in turn it changed how others saw me. That was years ago but this past weekend, Bill Harley's keynote took me to the next level of understanding the significance.

In a nutshell, Bill said we made a mistake when we allowed our art to become synonymous with Jonesborough and the big stage. He said telling to 1000 people in a tent isn't storytelling (by definition of intimacy). He said "Important things happen at the edges." He meant that about our art, that storytelling is at the edge or fringe of our society's ideals, but I think it also connects with what we do as "applied" storytellers - tellers using the art not only to entertain but specifically to educate, heal and enhance spirituality.

Like any good story, I imagine others took away a different message from Bill's keynote. And like any good story, it touched us where we needed to be touched. I guess I needed to hear once more that what I do is as important, if not more so, than what happens on a stage in a tent with 1000 people. How as a storyteller, I can listen as well as I tell and still make a difference in this world. I can tell to one lady in an elevator or listen to a dying friend's story, or sit in a room with five struggling teens, and have the world call me a storyteller. I can be proud of what I do, continue to marvel at the power of this thing called story, and know I have been successful. I have believed for a long time that once you give yourself to story, you serve it more than it serves you. You are the story, live and work in it, becoming so much a part of it that you cannot imagine doing anything else in your life. You realize story is all around you, you can not escape it nor do you want to.

Thank you Bill Harley. Thank you National Storytelling Network. And thank you to my fellow storytellers. Let's keep moving forward!

2012 International Storytelling Conference

April 7, in Istanbul, in case you were wondering. Link.

Pop quiz: what's this conference preview missing?

Shout Out: Storyteller Mark Goldman's Advice from the Experts

Storyteller Mark Goldman may be relatively new to the storytelling community, but one thing he's been doing recently is asking professional storytellers for advice to share with everyone. Thanks to Mark's iPod (with a built-in video camera) and YouTube, you can see the results in one-minute video bites. And Mark's recent trip to the National Storytelling Network's 2010 Conference means he's got a bumper crop of new videos.

Check out Mark's "Experts" page: http://www.storytellermark.com/Experts.asp

Shout Out: the 2010 National Storytelling Conference

I'll have more to say about the four days I spent in Los Angeles at the 2010 National Storytelling Conference, but I wanted to publicly thank all the Conference organizers, from those who found the hotel venue to those who read proposals to those who auditioned performers.
I especially want to thank NSN staffers Karin Hensley and Kit Rogers who do a million things behind the registration desk and behind the scenes cheerfully and efficiently, --and a special shout out for the sound crew (Steven Henegar, you're my hero).

Thanks to Mike Speller, Lisa Rowland, and Nancy Donoval for being willing to jump into Ruth Halpern's and my late night fringe show and improvise without knowing what would happen.

Thanks to all those who were willing to stay up late discussing storytelling... thanks Dixie, Eric, Jeff, Nancy, Joel. (I hope I've thoroughly convinced you that personal memoir is an OVERRATED AND OVEREXPOSED PERFORMANCE GENRE AND WE'RE SO OVER IT)

So many workshops, performances... it was impossible to fit them all in, so if we only had time for a hug, a hello, a "how's the conference going for you," a brief hallway chat: I just want to say how glad I am to have made the connection, no matter how brief, if only to prove that you're not just an imaginary "friend" I connect with via a 75 x 75 pixel photo on my computer screen.

It was great fun to meet new folks, meet online friends in person, and catch up with old pals.

Hey, if anything I said or did during the preconference / fringe / showcase / panel / back of the room discussion / late night at the pool bar / early mornings by Starbucks / passing in the hallway raised a question for you... let me know. Email me. I'm delighted to continue the conversation.

Photo credit: Dianne de las Casas

Farewell, Brother Blue

Brother Blue has died.

I knew of Brother Blue's reputation long before I ever met him. I couldn't quite meld the images of him that my mind created from hearing about him. About being a barefoot street performer in Cambridge. About storytelling in jails. About having a Doctorate in storytelling. About running a longstanding open mic storytelling series, that apparently every storyteller in New England had acknowledged as the place to tell.

Beginning in 1999, I began to encounter Brother Blue at storytelling conferences. I couldn't help but notice him. He was usually the first one in the audience to speak at the end of a workshop or panel discussion, often without waiting for an invitation for feedback. He'd stand up, and in a powerful voice address the speaker, sharing his experience of what he had just heard-- and his experience usually found a connection to the sacred calling of storytelling, its connection to soul, and he'd find a metaphor or Homeric turn of phrase to express his appreciation for what he'd just heard (even if the session was on something as mundance as a case study of knowledge management and oral history initiatives at NASA). He played the fool-- not to be a buffoon or a jester-- but to break through the formality in a room, to push the awareness and conversation to another level.

I only ever heard one story from Brother Blue, but it made a lasting impression. Four years ago (he would have been 83 years old) at a storytelling conference, late at night, a handful of us gathered in a dormitory lounge to swap stories. Blue was there, and he told. His words poured out like he was directly channeling the muses, and the musicality and verbal acumen with which he spun his fable was astonishing. To me, it was like witnessing Lord Buckley in the guise of an evangelical preacher.

I've been reading remembrances of Brother Blue this past week, by those who knew him well and those who encountered him only briefly. Here's a few I'd recommend:

• Boston Globe obituary, with reader comments.
• WickedLocal Blog, with reader comments
• Boston Globe story on memorial service, with reader comments
• Dr. Steven Scholzman, Psychology Today
• Terri Dunn, "Brother Blue's Gift"
• Laura Packer: "Grief and Gratitude"
• Official Online Condolences: http://tinyurl.com/ybojafs

If you never had the chance to meet Brother Blue, here are a few videos, so that you can get a glimpse of this man.

via Kevin Brooks:


via Cambridge Community Television: a street performance from Brother Blue

Reports from Northlands Storytelling Conference 2009

Thanks to blogger, storyteller, podcaster, and frequent commenter here Sean Buvala, my thoughts on the 27th Annual Northlands Storytelling Conference are available online as audio interviews in mp3 format

Almost Live Tweeting from Northlands Storytelling Conference

I'm at the Northlands Storytelling Network conference this weekend in Green Lake, Wisconsin. Got at least 3 folks on Twitter here.

In case you want to follow along this weekend on Twitter: link

(Wireless interenet from the conference center lobby and dining room... not from the breakout sessions, so there won't be much tweeting in real time. I suspect we won't be texting on our cell phones in the interactive workshops.)

Photos on Flickr, thanks to Dale Jarvis. More as weekend progresses.

Tales from the Body 2009: Online Post-Mortem

And welcome to the second installment of my reviews of 2009 storytelling events I didn't attend.

I feel like I should have a name for this. Like the "2009 Carnival of Crankiness."

As I wrote in my post ranting about how storytelling conferences are like shouting down a hole, I'm going to be reviewing storytelling conferences based on their online presence during but especially after the event.

I'm focusing on conferences because they are focused on "getting the word out." To allow practicioners to come together to experience professional development, share best practices, and, to some extent, allow networking to feed future collaborations and innovations. And it drives me nuts that in this day and age... when the marginal cost of disseminating discussions from an event like this is so low... that so little thought seems to be given to sharing out.

I may toss in a performance-centric event (e.g. Going Deep), mainly because the National Storytelling Network is co-sponsoring seven regional events this year in lieu of a national conference, and a couple of those events are more festival than conference.

----

Chronologically, the first NSN Year of the Regions Event was: TALES FROM THE BODY: Storytelling About Illness and Disability, produced by the Storytelling Center of New York.
Date: January 25th, 2009
Location: New York Society for Ethical Culture, New York City
Format: Storytelling Concert, Panel Discussion, Story Swap

Kudos to the Storytelling Center for posting a post-event writeup with photos on their site: link.
NSN has posted a report from organizer Donna Minkowitz on its website. link.
Seems like it was a small event, so just by attendance numbers alone I didn't expect any blog posts or tweets. But documentation on two web sites? I can't get cranky about that.

Philip David Morgan, who handles the web site for the Storytelling Center, let me know that he did record most of the event, but getting the video files edited and online will take some time... and the Center isn't clamoring for its own regular Twitter feed or Facebook presence. Oh, but Philip... I look forward to seeing the highlight reel.

Storytelling Conferences: Shouting Down a Hole

There's a motif in several European fairy tales, where a sister has to rescue her brothers from a supernatural fate (such as their transformation into geese, or ravens), by remaining silent for a lengthy period, say, seven years, seven months, and seven days. Often, the consequences of remaining silent bring her hardship and grief, and in some stories she digs a hole in the earth, and into this hole releases a torrent of emotions in words and sobs. She must then cover the hole, and bury her emotions, so that no one will know that she has broken her silence.

Sometimes I think of storytelling conferences in this way.

Conference attendees gather from all over, get together to speak, but the logistics of the conference are such that if you weren't there, you'd never know that anything was said. For all intents and purposes, the conference covered over the hole where the discussion went on.

I don't envision gatherings of storytellers as sharing of grief, though. So the other vision I have is that of Fight Club. Or maybe a conference of ninjas. The attendees think of themselves as a secret brother and sisterhood, with knowledge to share among each other, but not to those outside the secret club.

Now I've been to some of these conferences. I've learned a lot at them, networked a lot, met some great people, seen some terrific stuff happen as a result of conversations that started at these conferences. I'm not knocking storytelling conferences per se.

I am knocking their dissemination and distribution.

I can think of a lot of historical reasons why storytelling conferences didn't publish proceedings, probably many related to logistics and money (i.e. no papers to publish (because the focus was not academic), there not being enough financial incentive to record and distributed keynotes).

That's all changed. The barriers to entry for publication and distribution have fallen dramatically with the advent of the World Wide Web.

Ten years ago, Story, from fireplace to cyberspace : connecting children and narrative (1998), a conference of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Allerton Park Institute published its proceedings as a journal. Nice to see that they've released all the contents digitally... so you can read what presenters like Anne Shimojima, Janice Del Negro, Joseph Sobol and Karen Morgan said there. (Link)

I can't find a single storytelling conference since then that has done the same. Online? In print? Anything? It's been ten years. (Please-- someone, anyone-- correct me! Show me I'm wrong!)

In 2007, I was not able to attend the National Storytelling Network's National Conference, held in July. In October, I inquired about obtaining a copy of a recording of a keynote. It took months for anything to happen (An audio of the keynote was, for a brief time, made available for sale. It is not currently). For that 2007 conference, the text of the keynote by Ron Turner is publicly available via the Web (link) for anyone to read. The text of the keynote by Jo Radner is publicly available via the journal Storytelling, Self, Society. (And good luck trying to get a hold of a copy of that particular issue of that particular journal if you're not an academic).

In 2008, Eric Wolf brought his own recording equipment to his panel discussion at the National Storytelling Conference and released the audio of the entire session on the Web as an mp3 file, under a Creative Commons license. I can't find any evidence that any other part of the conference is available, in text or in audio.
(BTW, Eric Wolf is singlehandedly doing the work of a national storytelling advocacy organization: via his podcast, he is disseminating discussion and insights from a wide variety of respected practicioners to an international audience. For free.)

<Oops. Left out a significant source of conference coverage and interviews on the Web: Storyteller.net. See comments, below.

With the economy what it is these days, I'm predicting that there will be fewer people in attendance at storytelling conferences this year. That makes it even more essential that these gatherings make an effort to share and disseminate widely the goings on.

I'm attending a storytelling conference next month. I had hoped to encourage liveblogging and twittering during my session. Turns out my room will not have WiFi coverage (although, there may be cell phone access if anyone wants to text out). I will be blogging from the conference.

Coming up in future posts: I'm going to look at various storytelling conferences held in 2009 across North America and rate them on their accessibility for those who could not be there in attendance. (I'll likely look at both accessibility during the conference (via blog posts and Twitter), and dissemination afterwards (via their own websites, YouTube, blogs, Storytell, etc)-- let me know in the comments if there is a metric you think I should track)

While I'm Away: National Storytelling Conference Comments

If you attended the National Storytelling Conference held in Gatlinburg, Tennessee this year, feel free to post in the comments any questions, observations, or comments on the various workshops, keynotes, panels, and/or master classes.

While I'm Away: The Future of Storytelling Online

I'm on vacation. But here's a question for you, to ponder, and comment upon.

Eric Wolf hosted a panel discussion this morning at the National Storytelling Conference in Gatlinburg, Tennesee, on the future story of storytelling online, examining the role the internet is playing in shaping the 21st century storytelling movement.

This question is for those of you, who, like me, could not be there. If you were attending the discussion what resources would you like to know about?

No fair answering if you did attend the panel.

Storytellers: Who Speaks for You?

Most of the storytellers I know consider themselves performing artists (identifying as one is helpful come tax time). However, most of the same storytellers don't consider themselves as part of the larger cultural ecosystem of performing arts.

Partly that's historical: the storytelling revival of the last thirty five years didn't blossom from the performing arts community. If I recall my Sobol correctly, it springboarded off of the traditions carried forward by librarians, folk artists, and the entrepreneurial ambitions of an Eastern Tennessee high school teacher.

But every performing artist starts out focused on their art and craft, their technique and their inspiration. Hopefully, as they mature, they realize the need to broaden their perspective to learn where their art form came from-- and its current state in the cultural milieu.

Scott Walters, a noted theatre blogger (and a professor of drama at University of North Carolina Asheville) had this to say in a recent followup to his visit to the NPAC gathering:

There is another conference in a few days at Americans for the Arts, another organization that can open your mind. But like NPAC last week, the conference at Americans for the Arts will most likely have few artists in attendance. Conferences are expensive, and if you are an artist you may not have the wherewithal to attend one. But I would also venture that, for many artists, there is a lack of interest, a sense that such concerns are "academic" (by which is meant, in our anti-intellectual society, "irrelevant"), and that thinking about the larger issues surrounding the arts is unproductive.

I would argue the opposite. I would argue that action without thought is chaos, and production without purpose is empty. I would argue that the present without a sense of the past is shallow, and intuition without reason is random.

If, as so many people say, theatre has become irrelevant (and I don't think it has; I think it's relevance has gone underground during the tornado of triviality that has swept through the last 25 years) it may be because theatre artists, in the desperate need to simply survive, have lost an awareness of the larger world and their place in it. And what is best about a conference such as NPAC or Americans for the Arts or AlternateROOTs is that you are reminded of your own potential and your own importance.

(As with all my quotes from theatre blogs, replace "theatre" with "storytelling" and read it again.)

All this to say: we performing artists can't wait for someone else to step up to the national conversation on the arts. We're it. Precisely because there are not robust institutions that support storytelling on a national or regional level (key word: robust), it's definitely up to individual artists to step up and join in the national conversation on the arts. In a perfect world, I'd want the administrators, the executive directors, and the university professors who bolster the storytelling community to be leading this charge-- but that's, what, maybe 8 people nationally?

(I confirmed that none of NSN's board attended NPAC. Too bad, since this is precisely the time when NSN is struggling to come up with a viable organizational model.)

American for the Arts Conference link

Artists Unite in Denver, Storytellers Forget to Attend

(via Scott Walters' blog)

How'd I miss this?

The National Performing Arts Convention took place in Denver, Colorado on June 10-14, 2008. "Taking Action Together," NPAC sought to lay the foundation for future cross-disciplinary collaborations, cooperative programs and effective advocacy. Formed by 30 distinct performing arts service organizations demonstrating a new maturity and uniting as one a sector, the convention was dedicated to enriching national life and strengthening performing arts communities across the country.

So the theatre service organizations were there. So were the orchestra, dance and opera service organizations. In fact, they held their national conferences concurrently in Denver. The conductors were there, the chamber musicians were there. The music critics. The manager and agents. The university theatres. The composers. The producers. The dramaturgs and literary managers. The teachers. The grantmakers. The folkies. The lobbyists.

Three guesses as to which performing art that I'm a big fan of wasn't at the table (presumably because we don't have a viable "service organization" at the national level).*

National Performing Arts Convention Official Site.

NPAC did schedule several solo performers who claim the mantle of storyteller, including Mike Daisey and Red Feather Woman. The only mention of storytelling in the Program Book (which you can download from the convention website... (hi-res version is 7.9 MB, it's 122 pages long)... imagine that... a conference that releases an electronic copy of their program book to anyone who wants it, not just attendees) was in Will Power's workshop on hip-hop.

Rocky Mountain News highlights

NPAC Official Blog.
The NPAC blog at Artjournal contains a lot of the thinking that went into the planning of the conference, especially as to big picture topics for discussion, as well as reporting on what went on, and what will happen going forward. I'll probably spend some time here to mine some fodder for Breaking the Eggs. Also, lots of links to bloggers covering NPAC, so there's more to explore.

* There were nearly 4,000 attendees, so I'm hoping that someone from the o.g. storytelling community went. Anyone? Anyone?