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?

2nd Story: A Great Idea

A follow up to my previous post.

Normally, I wouldn't rise to the bait of an anonymous poster, but she called me on my snark, and this made me realize something that Sean has commented on before: from my blog postings, the reader can't tell what I actually feel about a subject. So here's an update.

Over in Chicago, Serendipity Theatre Company's got a good thing going with 2nd story, a monthly series and annual festival featuring personal storytelling at a popular wine bar. It sells out. It gets good press. It develops writers' performance skills and actors' writing skills. It celebrates the art of the well-told story.

And storytelling plus wine? That's a damn good idea. I wish more o.g. storytelling events featured wine.

Would that any venue I tell stories in is featured in a Zagat guide.

Jealous much? Yes, I am.

Because the old school storytelling community has missed the boat on this one. Dropped the ball. I looked at the roster of 2nd Story's storytellers. I looked at the behind-the-scenes organizers. I looked at the sponsors. Don't see any of the old guard. I can see storytellers skipping over WNEP's Skald (it's off-Loop, it's fringe, it's under-the-radar). I don't see how they could have missed this one.

(Am I missing something from two thousand miles away, just relying on Google? Yes, yes I am. Fill me in, Chicagoland people)

In my previous post, my use of the word "cringeworthy" wasn't a swipe at Ms. Stielstra, for her definition of storytelling. It was a swipe at the Chicago Storytelling Guild, who are either invisible or irrelevant in the Chicago arts community.

My remarks on the wine tasting at 2nd Story wasn't meant to be a swipe at the event. I just don't understand (not being an experienced wine taster or frequenter of wine bars myself) how the wine tasting and the storytelling go together. An organized wine tasting seems to me much more formal and stuffy than the communal, relaxed vibe that the storytelling can bring out. But I haven't been there. It works for 2nd Story.

2nd Story shows two things about the American Storytelling Revival:
1. That the Jonesborough, Tennessee-centric movement that started 35 years ago has narrowed its vision and become so inward-focused that it misses opportunities to connect with new audiences. (I've been saying this on the blog since the beginning)
2. The Revival of Storytelling will continue without them. The theatre and literary community, in recognizing the power of the personal story, are celebrating the art of storytelling. Hell, the business community, from "knowledge management" experts to marketing and branding gurus are carrying the storytelling torch, too (to my chagrin).

So, I apologize for not being clear.

But just we know, going forward: I've got my own biases and preferences:

I don't particularly care for personal memoir as a genre. (As if that's not clear already from my numerous entries on the toopic)

And reading a story out loud off of a piece of paper is storyreading, not storytelling, and isn't a performance art. And putting it on YouTube doesn't make it a better experience.

I like wine.

Arts Administration + Shirky: it's a Whole New World

Over at his blog, The Artful Manager, the ever-relevant Andrew Taylor reflects on a recent conference, and combines that with some fascinating (and transformative) perspective from Clay Shirky, to raise this question:

...each of those three words -- ''professional,'' ''arts,'' and ''organization'' -- is in radical flux at the moment. That suggests that a phrase (and an assumption) combining all three could mean less and less in shorthand form.

And while the National Storytelling Network is not a "professional arts organization," at this particular junction in its life cycle, the leadership and members would do well to consider Taylor's initial thoughts on the relevancy (or, the increasing irrelevancy) on the traditional roles of an organization.

Link to Taylor's post: The Artful Manager: Three words, three problems

Link to Clay Shirky, describing the concepts in his new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, in a 42 minute lecture at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. (Also available on YouTube).

New Models for Performers: Kevin Kelly's "1000 True Fans"

(via boingboing)

I've been aware, pretty much since the rise of Napster in 1999, that the Web was changing the way performing artists connected with their audiences and changing the way artists would generate revenue.

While new models are still evolving, even National Public Radio has recently reported on how artists (like Jane Siberry) are tapping into their fan bases to create highly decentralized patronage systems... working on commissions from your audiences.

Kevin Kelly, he of Wired fame (or, for you old timers like me, the Whole Earth Catalog) has posted his analysis of these new emerging models on his blog (link):

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

Kelly's post is required reading for self-employed performing artists (this means you, storytellers).

More thinking needs to be done to create a workable model for storytellers. The typical working storyteller has thousands of fans, but upwards of 90% of them are in an educational setting. Regardless of whether these kids have disposable income, a school setting is not an appropriate venue to push sales. Even if you could find a venue outside of school, kids aren't going to spend a hundred dollars a year on their favorite storyteller.

Then, as you move to teenagers and 18 to 25 year olds, you have to find the true fans amidst the sea of audiences who are accustomed to getting their culture digitally for free.

For storytellers, even those with adult audiences, $100 per true fan per year may be high. But I think $50 is doable.

And I suspect that a storyteller who has taken either Doug Lipman's marketing course or Sean Buvala's Outside In Boot Camp, and combines it with this True Fan model, will lead the way in creating an alternative model of making a living at storytelling.... one that does not depend on the whims of school board or state funding of elementary schools).

(This is not to take away from those storytellers right now who are making a living at storytelling... they work hard, and they deserve every penny. But I'm intrigued by the alternative model that Kelly describes.)

Thought Leader: Eric Wolf

Well, it's no surprise (to anyone who's taken a glance at the links in the left column of this blog) that storyteller Eric Wolf would turn up on my list of thought leaders in the storytelling community.

It's a pity that Eric Wolf named his podcast "The Art of Storytelling With Children," if only because I don't consider children my main audience, so I ignored his show for a long time.

My mistake.

Eric Wolf's roster of guests reads like a who's who of presenters from regional and national storytelling conferences.

What's more: while talking with Eric, the guests, all of whom share practical advice and hard-earned wisdom, don't limit themselves to storytelling with children.

From marketing to artistic process to community outreach to education, Eric's guests will provide anyone interested in storytelling with useful information from diverse perspectives.

(And yes, if you work with children, you will also get practical advice on performing for those audiences).

Each podcast takes the form of an interview, done via conference call, recorded as is, and then archived on the Web. The beauty of the conference call feature is that it allows listeners to participate, and ask questions of the guest.

The work Eric is doing here is profound in so many ways. It's elegantly simple, and yet, within the storytelling community, it's avant garde:
First, he seeks out people that he wants to learn from. He's not setting himself up as the expert. He's inviting the experts onto his show. (Also, his interview style does a fine job of modeling attentive listening)
Second, he invites us to not only listen in, but participate in the discussion, both on the conference call, and via comments on each episode's web page.
Third, he maximizes accessibility: you can listen via iTunes, you can download any of the shows, or you can just click around on the Web site and listen.
Fourth, he makes this invaluable learning resource available for free.

Just last year I was bemoaning (on Storytell, my personal choice of virtual community when I want to beat my head against a wall) that as a national community, we are still stuck in a travel-far-away-and-overcome-obstacles-to-get-wisdom model. Very mythological. Very Joseph Campbell. But very frustrating in this digital age.

I'm glad to see that someone has taken the technological tools available and created a new model.

I know you didn't create the podcast for my sole benefit, Eric, but I have to say thanks.

TED Talks - J.J. Abrams: The mystery box

Hearing about Carmen Deedy's experience at TED in 2005 got me thinking. I certainly appreciate that the TED conference organizers invited a storyteller... that they felt it important to have an oral storyteller share the stage (I'm missing information here, though, it's not clear to me if Carmen was invited as a "performer" or a "thinker," or even if TED makes that distinction). By the limited accounts available on the web, she certainly made an impression (not bad, considering Bono was the main attraction that year), but I wish I knew more.
In her plea for the importance of story, did she merely rely on the personal story?
When she said that "the storyteller has been relegated to the secondary or tertiary role in the community," was she merely bemoaning the loss of tradition. Did she acknowledge the role of technology (or was she simply stepping into an assigned role of the vanishing anthropological relic)?

TED has not published the video of her talk, so for now, the questions remained unanswered.

I'm including here a TED talk from 2007 from J.J. Abrams, the writer and director (Alias, Lost, Cloverfield). Now here's a storyteller who's unabashedly awed by technology... because it allows him (and inspires him) to fully express his creativity. I'm including his rambling TED talk here, not because I think Abram's evangelizing of the democratizing power of technology to create is that relevant, but because his metaphor of the "mystery box" acknowledges fundamentals of our art form: that mystery is the catalyst for the audience's imagination, that witholding information makes the imagination work harder (and makes stories more satisfying), and that a story's narrative is not its content.

Also, I'm a huge fan of Lost.



If you were asked to perform at TED, what would you say?

Creative Loafing Atlanta: Spotlight on Storytelling

Journalist Curt Holman has the arts section cover story this week in Atlanta's alternative weekly, Creative Loafing, where he profiles local storytellers Carmen Deedy, Andy Offutt Irwin, Rob Cleveland, and Audrey Galex. The article juxtaposes the ancient art form against the latest technology... and leads with a story about Deedy at the TED conference. The brief article also manages to highlight other issues, such as the generation gap:

Professional storytellers are a diverse bunch, from Irish-style balladeers to African griots to tall-tale swappers. But one demographic consistently underrepresented is young people.

"I'm 52 years old," Cleveland quips, "or, as they call me in storytelling circles, 'The Kid.'"

Andy Offutt Irwin, a perpetually boyish singer/storyteller from Covington, notes that, "the good thing about storytelling is that it doesn't matter how old you are. The longer you live, the more you know.

"But there needs to be more young storytellers," he says. "My cousin who's 28 came to see me in Oklahoma City and afterward said, 'Andy, you're a rock star!' And I said, 'Yeah, but everyone's 55.'"

Applied Wisdom: The Storyteller and Listener Online

Holly Stevens' blog, The Storyteller and Listener Online, is subtitled "essays on the role of narrative and story in peacemaking, healing, bridge building and reconciliation."

Her blog's milieu is applied storytelling, that is, storytelling and the use of story in the service of a larger goal.

It is also unique in that Holly prefers to act as a behind the scenes editor. Most of the content on the site is not her own words. Yet her vision and voice shine through. Since 2005, Holly has been inviting story practicioners to share their experiences from the field. The collection of voices has been astounding. From all over the world, contributors have shared their experiences of using storytelling to bring communities together, to come to terms with illness, with grief, with addiction, with recovery, with incarceration, with reconciliation, with isolation. Her quest to seek out these people and invite them to share their stories has been a personal passion of hers, but also a gift to the world.

For performance storytellers like myself (whose main focus is the performing arts), The Storyteller and Listener Online provides a welcome window into an active and engaged part of the storytelling community.

Reading these essays serve as a reminder of the potency of story, the possibilities that art offers in healing body and soul, and the diversity of fields in which storytelling has found a niche.

And occasionally, the essays even offer a shot across the bow of the entire storytelling community (performers and producers included): check out this spirited panel of six contributors (in a Q&A format) discuss on the role of storytelling in community development. In a posting from October 2007, panelists Andre Heuer, Laura Simms, Brian Herod, Arlene Goldbard, Paul Conway, and Katrice Horsley discuss pertinent topics such as: what is storytelling? what are people's perceptions of storytelling? what are the self-imposed limits the storytelling community has created and accepted? what is the impact of storytelling and what are the limits to this impact? does contemporary storytelling need to be re-invented?

This essay alone could generate enough blog discussion to fuel a year's worth of postings here. (And if things get slow, I think I'll come back here to find some provocation to get me going....)

Thought Leadership in Practice: Storyteller.net

Sean Buvala recently asserted Storyteller.net has been around on the Web longer than Google. (To confirm that, I checked via the Internet Archive. Yup, by more than a year!)

Since the very beginning, Storyteller.net has aimed to be a clearinghouse on the Web, a "one stop shopping site" for information about storytelling. But rather than a top-down, "we know best" approach, from the very beginning, the site invited members of the storytelling community to contribute content, share tips, share stories, and spread the word about what they offer. Storyteller.net understands the collaborative nature of the Web, and has since the beginning.

The model works.

You can find more on-the-ground, in-the-field, helpful tips on the storytelling art and business aggregated here than on any other web site, period.

From the beginning, copyright of content submitted by contributors (articles, stories, audio) has remained with the contributor.

From the beginning, Storyteller.net has offered storytellers a web page, so that even the non-tech savvy teller could hang their shingle on the Web. (With a brilliant model for building the site: a storyteller could upgrade their listing on storyteller.net for a modest sum ($25/year) OR by contributing content. I don't know if the economics are working out, but that's a surefire way to build your site content).

They've hosted audio files so that people could hear stories online, and they've done it since 1997! Now, in 2007, that doesn't seem so "different," BUT in the storytelling world, it's far from common. (Whereas it's a no-brainer that any band in the 21st century wanting to have a go in the music industry has their music online so that potential audiences can hear it, the number of storytellers that even attempt this is ridiculously small).

You can quibble with the quality of the advice posted there (same as you can with any user-generated content site), but hey, if you don't like the advice in an article, write your own, and submit it. Odds are Storyteller.net will publish it.

The content on Storyteller.net may not be cutting edge-- it's meant to be more practical than philosophical, more personal than political. But in the storytelling realm, the mere existence of Storyteller.net is cutting edge. Hats off to Sean Buvala for thought leadership in practice.

Where are the Thought Leaders in Storytelling?

If you want to learn about storytelling as an art form, good luck using the Web.

There are plenty of talented storytellers and storytelling mentors out there. Good resources: courses, books, conferences.

The national and regional conferences are excellent places to not only learn storytelling, but network with storytellers, and most importantly, hear from the "big picture" thinkers-- the folks who have been doing this for years, who care passionately about this, and have challenging ideas about where the American storytelling revival has come from, where it is now, and where it's going.

But, by and large, you won't find them online.

(One exception: the Storytelling in Business movement, which has been growing rapidly in recent years, where business leaders harness organizational knowledge through storytelling, narrative, and applying the lens of anthropological collection of folklore to the corporate organization, has always maintained a healthy presence online (in part, because it has grown contemporaneously with the Web, and in part because business folks are quick to realize (unlike many storytellers) the value proposition of being seen online).

Google the phrase, "storytelling," and see what resources are on the first page.

Today, the only single storyteller to appear on that first page, is Heather Forest. Since 2000, she's provided the world with Story Arts Online, a web site with resources for storytelling in the classroom. The site is customer focused, that is, its for teachers to use. It's actually difficult to find any info about Heather on the site and how to hire her (this may be intentional on her part-- after thirty years of performing, you might want to slow down).

You can find the International Storytelling Center... but the web site is a promotional and professional site for the Center's real-world site. Nothing wrong with that, but their web site is not contributing anything to the understanding of the art form.

The National Storytelling Network's site only appears on the second page (and I would argue that, though its mission is different that that of the ISC, its Web site is also not contributing anything to the understanding of the art form).

Granted, there's a problem with the query itself, as "Storytelling" is too broad a term to focus solely on the performing art.

But I would argue that the "thought leaders" of the storytelling field, apart from Storytelling in Business group, and Heather Forest, have abandoned the Web as a means of getting the word out.

Actually, "abandon" means that they were there in the first place. Hmm. What's the word I'm looking for?

"Ignored."

Take a look who's advertising on this Google results page in the right hand column for a clue as to who does understand the importance of Web presence: Doug Lipman, Aneeta Sundararaj, and Sean Buvala. Through Google's ad program, they have paid for links to their sites to appear on that front page.
(Today, the ad list also includes a link to an entertainment design firm... I suspect that they will find the clickthrough from the term "storytelling" disappointing)

I'm not sure why children's literature proponent Esmé Raji Codell's single page on storytelling in the classroom appears on the first page of results. It may be that Google's algorithm for ranking is simply weighting it more because the set of all web pages linking to it (presumably from educational web sites) is larger than the set of all web pages linking to any other storytelling web site.

So, our elders in the field are mostly ignoring the Web.

We can see them at Festivals, but there we usually only hear them tell stories. At conferences, we invite those in our community that we feel have wisdom to impart to be keynote speakers, or lead intensives, or workshops, but their thoughts, however valuable, are lost. Conference proceedings aren't published. Recordings are not disseminated.

So wisdom --or challenges to accepted wisdom-- appears once a year, at a conference in just one place, at one time. Maybe an abbreviated version appears in Storytelling magazine, but that's a dead end too (An article in storytelling magazine is akin to packing knowledge away in a crate never to be seen again, like at the end of "Raiders
of the Lost Ark). Coincidentally, via a used book trading website, I just found a grad student in the library program at University of Illinois who unearthered twenty copies of a state-of-the-field collection of white papers (from Joseph Sobol, Karen Morgan, Janice del Negro, et. al) circa 1998 which I'll be distributing to people who can use this info. If you want a copy immediately, UI has put the papers on the Internet Archive here. (Story, from fireplace to cyberspace : connecting children and narrative (1998). Allerton Park Institute (39th : 1997 : Monticello, Ill.))

In some cases, we have to wait multiple years while our leaders in our field write a book.

A book is not a conversation, and neither is a keynote speech.

Now, there are some folks in the storytelling community who blow my mind every time I talk with them. They're sharp, insightful, wise, and open to being challenged. And they do spread their vision, share it, pass it along... one on one, or in workshops, or at conferences.

But it's slooooow.

Enter blogging.

In many industries, notably the tech industry, authorities in the field write on the state of their industry via a blog.

If you're reading this, this is not news.

My favorite "industry" that's blogging right now is theatre. Some bloggers are
professional critics, some are amateur critics. Some are directors, some are producers, some are playwrights, some are in-the-trenches administrators. And they are having passionate discussions and arguments about the state of theatre in America, in the UK, in Australia. About the art form and where its going, why its dying, what's exciting and what's cutting edge and what's going to keep the theatre world alive.

And you can see, via the comments, and the blogs, that ideas are zipping back and forth. Arguments, agreements, conversations... all virtual, but they are happening.

And its not being driven by one institution, but by impassioned people who believe in an art form.

Does storytelling have these folks? Yes.

Are they blogging?

They're starting to. It's taking a while. (Heck, I registered this blog in 2000. It took me 7 years to get around to posting anything here)

But those that are using the Web are becoming de facto thought leaders of the storytelling movement.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting reviews, shout outs, and links to these blogs and podcasters, who are utilizing the Web the way it was meant to be used: as a way to share content, to participate in media, and as a way to reach out to those interested in a field and invite them to learn more.

Who these folks are won't be a surprise (I've had links on the left hand side of this blog for a while). But I do want to start a fire under the conversation, and, while we're at it, boost our respective Google rankings;-).