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?

Oh I Wish I Were An Oscar Mayer Weiner

"An Angry White Guy in Chicago" is the blog of Chicago producer/writer/director/performer Don Hall. It should be required reading for any small theatre producer in this country. That includes storytelling event producers, and storytellers who perform for adult audiences.

Recently, he posted a video from Weird America of a man obsessed with hot dogs. A guy who devotes all of his creative energy to hot dogs. Don writes:

With our esoteric devotion to what has become, like opera or ballet or jazz, the province of a small, SMALL portion of American society (more people have webbed toes than see live theater monthly in this country) and our deep belief that other people will care if we only could reach them, aren't we much the same as Hot Dog J. Frank - The Willy Wonka of Meat?

Watch the hot dog video, then read Don's post.

Then read it again with the following substitutions:
Replace "Fringe theater" with "storytelling."
Replace "live theater" with "storytelling."
Replace "theatre artist" with "storyteller."

Thought Leadership: It's Not Enough to Just Think

Long time denizens of the storytelling community may not recognize any of the names that I've anointed with the term "thought leader." For example, I haven't included any of the community elders, who, in the thirty years of the storytelling revival, have thought long and hard about the art form, and have some pretty insightful thoughts on the movement and where it's been and where it's going.

But it's not enough to think those thoughts. Being a thought leader means making sharing and promoting those thoughts.

And leadership means sharing and promoting the hell out of those thoughts. Getting them out there. Getting heard. Evangelizing.

I'm going to take three examples of what I think of as "deep thoughts" and look at how fast they are catching on:

Carol Birch and Melissa Heckler collected some of the movement's thoughts in "Who Says?: Essays on Pivotal Issues in Contemporary Storytelling" (August House, 1996), and those essays are still pertinent (Which reminds me, I need to go back and read them all again).
Now, granted, this anthology most likely didn't rush off the shelves at August House when it came out. You don't see the storytelling community rushing to contemplate or debate "pivotal issues," except maybe for three days each summer at a conference. (You, dear readers, all ten of you, are the exception, of course.)
And there aren't enough university courses in the world for these essays to get out there, even should they be required reading (and I'm of the opinion they should.)

If Who Says? Volume 2 were to come out... we'd need to rethink its delivery vehicle. Reading about storytelling performance is like dancing about architecture. Short multimedia pieces depicting oral storytelling performances along with commentary from the essayist would not only be more digestible to storytellers outside of the university, but catch some attention from the world at large. A storytelling lab on YouTube-- why not? Hey, are the slide show guys who helped Al Gore available?

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Jo Radner, current chair of the National Storytelling Network, created quite a buzz with her inspiring keynotes at Sharing the Fire in 2006 and the National Storytelling Conference in 2007. She looks at the current state of the storytelling movement and suggests some paths for the future.

And when I say, quite a buzz, I mean among the five hundred people who got to hear her.

I wasn't one of them.

I've been trying to track down a recording of the keynote for some time.

I happened to talk to Jo the other day, and got her to email me her speech, if I promised to remember that it was much more entertaining delivered live.

(She also was fairly certain that no one recorded the keynote at the 2007 conference).

/me smacks head against wall.

Is it really that difficult to arrange to record a keynote? Hell, fly me out to the conference and put my iPod on the podium to record it, and I'll have the speech up on the Web at the Internet Archive for anyone to listen to, for free, forever, the next day.

The speech was as impressive as I'd heard. I didn't agree with all of Jo's visions for the future, but I was quite excited that she put it out there.

She also told me it was now available in print as part of the latest issue of Storytelling, Self, and Society.

Good grief.

"SSS" is the international, peer-reviewed academic journal created in 2003 by the Storytelling in Higher Education Special Interest Group of the National Storytelling Network. I understand the vision that created the journal (i.e., the desire to bring storytelling into secure footing in the academic world), but the infrastructure of these journals is more self-serving (for the publishers who print them, as well as for the egos of those academics who are published in them) than community-focused.

Academic journals like these limit their audiences (they focus on university libraries and academics (yes, personal subscriptions are available, if you want to pay $65/year for 3 issues)). They have authoritarian copyright policies (most journals, SSS included, recommend that authors relinquish copyright and transfer it to the publisher. SSS's publisher does allow exceptions, as long as authors grant them exclusive worldwide publishing license).

I serendipitously discovered that my employer has online access to SSS, so I took a peek and was quite impressed with the articles I found there, and sorry to see that for most of the storytelling community, they are hidden away behind a locked gate.

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Finally, I wanted to do a shout out to Kendall Haven --one of the first professional storytellers I ever saw perform once I discovered storytelling. Kendall is a former scientist, and he's surveyed the research out there in educational literature on the educational impact of storytelling, and found hundreds of qualitative and quantitative studies to back up storytelling's usefulness in the classroom, going way beyond the tired old position paper by the National Council of Teachers of English trotted out by every storyteller trying to book a school residency or assembly.

So where did I find out about this? SSS. (/me rolls eyes). He's also presented at the 2006 National Storytelling Conference. He's written a book about what he found, Story Proof: the Science Behind the Startling Power of Story (Libraries Unlimited, 2007).

I don't imagine the book tour that Libraries Unlimited set up included YouTube videos. (Nope, just checked).

Now I know Haven is a hard-working storyteller. He'll get the word out, one professional development workshop at a time, one reading conference at a time. But I have to say, he's sitting on an idea virus that needs to be liberated from its petri dish. Where's the Story Proof blog? Where's the Story Proof web site? Even the storytelling community's evangelists for storytelling in education --the ones who know how to use the web-- aren't picking up on this (hey-- Karen? Kate? Jackie? Dianne? Rachel? Kevin? the clue phone is ringing. Pick up, would you?)

Get those Oscar-winning slide shows guys back here again.

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A presentation at a storytelling conference is not sufficient. An article in an academic journal is not sufficient. An article in Storytelling magazine is not sufficient. (SSS = throwing your ideas down a deep well. Storytelling magazine = less deep well, but a well none the less)

What is sufficient? Will I be happy only when every storytelling elder has their own YouTube channel, blog, viral marketing campaign, and ancillary line of products?

(Okay, yeah, I'd be happy)

There are more and more ways to get content out there. And I've mentioned a few of the leaders who have found ways to do that. Old school, meet new school. Make stuff happen.

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.

Thought Leader: Rachel Hedman

Voice-- A Storyteller's Lifestyle is the blog of Utah storyteller Rachel Hedman.

While nominally a blog with practical tips and insight into the nuts and bolts of storytelling, ranging from story crafting exercises to microphone technique to room presentation, Rachel also tackles larger issues in the storytelling community, such as diversity, technology, or the "generation gap." It's clear from her regular and varied postings that she is passionate not only about storytelling but about the storytelling movement.

Whether she means to or not, by virtue of her age (she's twentysomething), her blog provides the storytelling community a window into the concerns and the opinions of the up and coming generation of storytellers... especially in regards to how the storytelling community can best welcome and embrace generational change.

Rachel also posts like clockwork: twice a month, usually on the 1st and 15th, which usually provokes me into paroxysms of panic that I'm posting too infrequently.

I'm really glad she's contributing to the discussion of where the American storytelling revival is going and what it's doing. I don't always agree with her analysis and proposed solutions, but that's precisely why I'm compelled to read her blog... to consider another viewpoint on an issue I'm also passionate about. And I'm sure that her blogging will continue to inspire and challenge me.

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 Leader: Limor Shiponi

Back in July 2007, I was bemoaning the fact that the storytelling community did not have a "lively agora," a place online to generate the kind of conversational buzz the same way a conference could.

I made this complaint on an email list which once, a decade ago, could have laid claim to such a description, but which has since happily slid into irrelevance.

Little did I know that others peeking at the list would take my complaint as a call to action.

Limor Shiponi, a storyteller, musician, and professional life coach in Israel, quickly set up her own blog, aptly titled "Limor's Storytelling Agora."

Since then, she's not only shared tips and tricks of storytelling, but used her blog to generate conversation. One area of interest of hers is the role of narrative in video games-- an industry still in its infancy which desperately needs to understand the role of storytelling.

Limor hasn't posted anything recently. Go back and look at her past postings. What do you think of her coaching tips? Her exercises for understanding the connection between folktales and personal tales? Do you agree with her assessments on the role of narrative? On the primacy of orality in the storytelling act? Leave her a comment... see if that will get her posting again.

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.