Elitist Storytelling Reported in Oklahoma! (The State, not the Musical)

Over at OKLAHOMA TELLERS, Marilyn Hudson calls out "storytelling elitism." She notes that this beast has two faces, one which hires and one which tells.

One side is elitist because it sees only one type of storytelling as "true storytelling" (theatrics vs. traditional, for example). Such storytelling must be defined with terms such as "artistic", "meaningful","educational", and "professional". The folksy stylings of a country teller would never be acceptable. The telling for the sheer joy of telling a saucy or funny tale would be frowned on. The less than perfect delivery, style, or presentation of a newbie would never be heard or seen.

In her full post, it seems she's directing this at those who hire storytellers. I suspect she has one or two specific producers in mind (but I don't know the Oklahoma scene well enough to say for sure), and I'm assuming she thinking of storytelling event producers.

But a producer who doesn't want an untried teller on their stage is no different than a movie theatre booking a Hollywood film over the neighbor kid's low-budget summer film project. To exclude novice storytellers from the stage at performance events where people have paid admission isn't elitist, it's good business sense.

Telling stories for the sheer joy of telling stories is great. I'm in favor of that too. It has its place at family gatherings, around campfires, and even, in the context of performance events, at open mics or story swaps.

The other side of the face is the storyteller who has come to believe that abstract artistry is superior to heartfelt communication. They have come to believe the rhetoric of the need for lighting, props, makeup, and a "brand". They have allowed storytelling to be defined by large stage theater instead of standing on its own -and very -unique feet.

I don't know any storyteller that believes that abstract artistry is superior to heartfelt communication. (Neither do I know any that insist on lighting, props, and makeup... but then, I'm not familiar with the Oklahoma storytelling landscape.) I do know solo performers who are accomplished storytellers who do prefer to tell in theatres, use a script, but they don't call it storytelling. They insist on calling it theatre.

In an effort to parse what Marilyn might be reacting to, I found this entry of hers on a different blog:

In recent years, more and more touches of theatrics have been added to be "crowd pleasers" under the assumption that "today's child or audience" needs action and variety....
I have also seen a lot of meaningless shouting, audience participation, and over the top acting in some storytellers that was fun to watch but was a lot like eating spun sugar....it left you feeling a little empty......it was junk food that left nothing for the mind or the heart to think on and discover days later....

Every storyteller has a different style. And each teller may be at a different place along their learning curve (so that, for example, they haven't mastered the use of "meaningless shouting" in their stories... er, or rather, the appropriate use of volume and physical energy). And we all have our preferences. But I don't meet many storytellers who push their style as better than others.

But, if Oklahoma is somehow fomenting a cadre of uppity storytellers dedicated to the notion that storytelling should be defined by loud and eye-catching shenanigans performed without regard to the needs of the audience, I'm with you Marilyn, let's send those elitists back to the vaudeville circuit where they belong.

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

Why Memoir? Part 3.2

Ruthanne Edward, from Ottawa:

I have noticed that The Moth style events (story slams etc.) are pretty much entirely personal stories and primarily a younger crowd than a typical storytelling event. I think this stems from what others have said about how people feel disconnected, don't have the same opportunity to tell their own and hear other's stories as in the past. We are also all coming from much more diverse backgrounds with different experiences than ever before. I think in this regard that personal stories serve two purposes. Hearing the stories of someone from a similar time, place or culture as you helps to reinforce your personal identity. Hearing the stories of someone from a different time, place or culture is new, exotic and hopefully helps you to begin identifying with them.

Me again.
Perhaps the appeal of The Moth's aesthetic (ten minute true stories from the teller's personal life (although recent squabbling in the blogging community over the veracity of Malcolm Gladwell's "true" story at The Moth seems to indicate that they don't let the "true" part get in the way of a good story) is this: the simple elevation of the well-done kitchen table story with a microphone and a spotlight (in a venue with a well-stocked bar) celebrates America's obsession with the cult of the individual.

And I suspect the resonance for The Moth's audiences is not just similar "time, place or culture" (because they go out of their way to find tellers with odd jobs and unique experiences to share) but similar reactions to experience. That is, it's the emotional content that resonates, not necessarily the contextual details. And in doing this, it validates the idea of the individual. (Although, the concept of "Everybody has a story to tell" is by no means exclusive to nightclubs in the Village)

And again, if you've got an underused storytelling muscle in your frontal lobe, it's easier to visualize a story set in a familiar milieu, be it New York in the 1990s or Middle American in the 1950s.

Why Memoir? Part 3.1

I posted the question as to why personal memoir was so popular to the Storytell Discussion list. Several folks replied, and I asked for and received permission from several of the responders to post their thoughts here.

Gregory Leifel, from Illinois, http://www.thrivingmoss.com and very very soon, www.AhhhFinally.com, wrote:

does anyone think the reason could also partly be society's obsession with the previously private side of others?

Now I'm sure everyone here is going to deny wanting to know anything about any celebrity, yet something is driving this celebrity/private side obsession. Is it transferring over to storytellers and the audience preferences? No, seriously. Are we more open to stories that approach how another person personally looks at life or life's challenges because we've been inundated with the private lives of many celebrities? Has it made it okay? Do we expect the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in all its ugliness and glory?

After all, fairy tales and literary stories make you reflect in an anonymous way. You don't know the characters personally, because they aren't real, but you learn lessons from their challenges. Now, similar messages within personal stories are perhaps more identifiable because the real live storyteller on the stage is just like you, real with tough challenges. (celebrities are real people living in an unreal setting). Non-fiction books outsell fiction, but they didn't used to. Is this a result of the information society? We just gotta know details? We expect to know, so tell tell tell?

My feeling, at least with the popularity of personal stories in the U. S., is that our youth over quite a number of decades is no longer exposed to fairy tales. Maybe the Britney Spears' and Paris Hiltons of our pop-culture are so characterized that they are the fairytale stories now. And somehow it's transfered over to how we all tell stories.

My response:
Interesting to compare the rise and fall of teen pop stars with the fortunes and misfortunes of princesses and youngest sons... but I don't think an obsession with celebrity is pushing the hunger for memoir.

(And what about this? We'll clamor for more details for TV memoirs, tell all biographies... there are no taboos in the publishing world. But onstage... plenty of topics are kept out. The whole truth? No way. Not at storytelling events. Just the nice stuff. The humorous stuff. The stuff that honors the bonds of family and love and wisdom and apple pie.)

I think you're closer to the mark, Gregory, with the ability to identify with the protagonists. Adults, particularly, may more easily relate to a personal story than an anonymous folktale character. Perhaps the audience member has reached certain age at which they recognize that they themselves are not as smart as you thought they were and so maybe just maybe this guy onstage knows something (or is sharing that the story of that self-same epiphany).
Or,
the audience member has an atrophied imagination, and path of least resistance is to follow the story that requires only the image of the very storyteller in front of you and the carefully described landmarks familiar from nostalgia.

"Mini Manifestos"

I bookmarked Andrew Taylor's "mini-manifesto" for the school year back in September. Taylor runs a two-year, multidisciplinary MBA degree in Arts Administration at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

see with clarity
choose with purpose
act with intent

At the time, it inspired me that the head of an MBA program wanted to develop cultural leadership that could transform arts organizations with these values.

This week I was reminded of this in a different call to reflection and action (or nonaction, as the case may be):



I've been thinking about these questions for my day job... common sense questions, really. Refreshing that they come from a software company (the post was from Jason Fried, the director of 37signals of Basecamp and Backpack fame, a company dedicated to building the best products possible with the least number of features necessary).

Not much to add here except to say that I'm going to be doing some reflecting on these questions, and on Taylor's expressed values above, and make an assessment on how well I'm doing.

And how well the organizations that support storytelling are doing.