The Problem of Keeping Dry

A Nasruddin story, for World Storytelling Day

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

Which Would You Rather Hear?

Great story or great storyteller: which do you prefer?



(hat tip to Sean, who reminded me that this question was first put into my noggin by Priscilla Howe, who asked the question on her Storytelling Notes blog early in 2009: link)

So, Willy, that's a New Sound for You, Isn't It?

Random department: If you search on the name "Willy Claflin" on YouTube, you get about 19 results. Most are of storyteller Willy Claflin singing a song, or telling a story. But you also get this:



Love the suit.

Anyone seen Willy Claflin break into Korean boy band pop?

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Update March 16: the original video was removed from YouTube, so you can't repeat the search results oddity anymore.

I still have no idea why a live performance of the song "1 년 정거장," or "1 Year Station" sung by G-Dragon showed up in the search results.

Storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham on Alabama's Ghost Trail

While combing through YouTube for video of storytellers, I found a terrific interview with Alabama storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham, recorded for the Alabama Ghost Trail (a project of Southwest Alabama Tourism). She's mostly not telling stories in the interview (though there are a few), but talking about storytelling, so I thought I'd let her do the talking. (Interview in three parts, about 30 minutes total)

Part 1, she talks about ghost stories, and a little about her own ghost, Jeffrey.


Part 2: More about Jeffrey, the importance of storytelling in the Southern United States and her part of Alabama, blue bottle trees, and family storytelling.


Part 3: telling ghost stories to children, why ghosts come back, collecting and preserving ghost stories.


These videos were produced by Matt Wilson in association with the University of Alabama Fellows Experience and Southwest Alabama Tourism. You can find more videos from the Alabama Ghost Trail at: http://www.youtube.com/user/AlabamasGhostTrail

Introducing: Story Lab X

Does the art of the storyteller translate well to video?

It's a question that storytellers have wrestled with since the beginnings of the American storytelling revival, which predated the rise of the home video recorder by just a handful of years.

As a performer (and as an audience member), it's an interesting dilemma, as video has the potential to increase reach, at the same time that it may or may not capture what is essential about the live art.

There's been some recent chatter (again) about the invisibility of this art form in today's broadband media landscape, and this called to mind recent efforts (like those of Ellouise Schoettler, Philip David Morgan, Eric Wolf, and RED Internacional de Cuentacuentos, among others) to use the Web to showcase videos of storytellers telling stories.

So, along those lines, for your consideration, to consider both the plusses and minuses of watching storytellers on video, I'm launching a new site, Story Lab X.

I'm simply curating-- scraping videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Ning, Blip, etc. (so if one day you happen to catch one of your own videos there-- don't panic. I'm simply linking to where you originally posted it using the 'embed' code. (If you don't want your online video shared online, then might I suggest disabling the sharing option?)).

I chose the word "lab" to call to mind an experiment. The videos that appear will not only differ in their content, but in their approach to the medium. There are aesthetic issues the translation to video entails... some of these videos are clearly using what different about the medium to their advantage, and many, it is clear, have not thought about it. Posts on some of these issues raised, the plusses and minuses of translation to video, are coming soon.

Meanwhile, over at Story Lab X, the videos are there for you to ponder, to enjoy, and to stir up questions of aesthetics.

Here's your first assignment: enjoy the videos: http://storylabx.tumblr.com

For the time being, there's a new video posted each day.

(But if that's not enough for you, there is always my semi-curated storytelling collection on YouTube)

Exploring Storytelling through Dance in Tamil Nadu

During our cultural tour of Tamil Nadu, on two occasions we got to meet with and learn from two practioners of bharatanatyam, South Indian classical dance. Two afternoons is certainly not enough time to learn the history, cultural context, and range of this art form, even from master teachers, but we were willing students.

After lecture/demonstrations earlier in the week on other oral traditions of Tamil Nadu, we were ready for some hands-on, feet-on learning.

Thanks to YouTube, I can show you what bharatanatyam looks like:


Professional dancer Uma Ramesh had us up on our feet, stamping out talas on the floor. Clearly, her dexterity, stamina, and grace (not to mention her three decades of training), put our hilarious attempts at coordinated rhythm to shame. But after demonstrating for us the pure dance movements of bharatanatyam, she then led us in an exploration of the narrative aspects of the art form. In addition to its devotional and kinetic aesthetics, the standard presentation of bharatanatyam includes a story, brought to life through a specific gestural vocabulary of the hands and the face.

Explaining this in writing will be needlessly confusing, so luckily YouTube can show you what I mean. Here are some bharatanatyam workshop performances that focus solely on abhinaya, or the gestural storytelling. Take a look and see how specific the choreography is-- it's practically as literal as sign language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0qdfkoSQ5g

With plenty of hands-on exercises, Ms. Ramesh had us practice mudras (that's the religious term. I forget what the bharatanatyam term is for iconic gestures) and helped us explore a gestural vocabulary for telling a story. We broke into small groups and began choreographing ensemble renditions of "The Talkative Turtle," an animal fable familiar to most of us, even if we didn't know its Indian origins from the Panchatantra.

Hilarity ensued—eventually. First we had to create a reader's theatre outline on the spot, then choreograph it, all the while navigating small group dynamics (only our 3rd day together, this the first collaborative task we were assigned, and clearly our group had at least two different styles of learners (talk it out first vs. do something, anything, and shape on our feet). My group never made it far enough along to rehearse the whole story and thus our first time on our feet was in front of our colleagues.

Our hosts graciously served us tea and cookies, but our limited time in the workshop and our need to "get it right" led us to corner Ms. Ramesh in the kitchen for more coaching and finessing of form.


We were pleased to learn that bharatanatyam's gestural vocabulary was expansive enough to include specific mudras for such words as: tree, water, bird, turtle. (And I learned my ring fingers are not coordinated enough to correctly form the mudra for "tree")

Later, our host Jeeva Raghunath would tell this very story as an interactive tale, reminding us of the gestures first, then falling silent during the story at those gestures, allowing the audience to jump in with the correct word, demonstrating for us an extremely practical use of our newfound technique.

But for me, the practical takeaway was this: specific, defined gestures can be an effective tool to tell a story. When used thoughtfully, gestures help the audience co-create the story in their imagination, by giving them a visual (and possibly kinesthetic) suggestion from which they can expand upon.

That should be obvious (coaches have commented on my lack of specific gestures for years), but for me, seeing a master artist who specialized in this, at a level so far beyond what I could even conceive, was necessary to really have it sink in.

YouTube Storytellers

Looking for storytellers on YouTube?

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UPDATE February 13, 2011: YouTube discontinued Groups as of December 1, 2010.

Many, although not all, of the videos that were posted to the Ancient Art of Storytelling Group can be found on my YouTube playlists:

World Storytelling


World Storytelling 2

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The way to find storytellers on YouTube is not via the search box (which, despite an update by Google, still isn't helpful)*, is via The Ancient Art of Storytelling group.

For the past two years, this group has been a repository for YouTube videos featuring stories told by amateurs and professionals alike.

You can find storytellers like Lethan Candlish, Sean Buvala, Yvonne Healy, Ruth Halpern, Mike Lockett, Joe Hayes, Dale Jarvis, Margaret Read MacDonald, Priscilla Howe, Alton Chung, Michael McCarty, Clare Muireann Murphy, John Row, Kate Dudding, Ellouise Schoettler, Martha Escudero, U. Utah Phillips, Diane Ferlatte, Nancy Donoval, Antonio Rocha, Norah Dooley, Gene Tagaban, Gale Portman, and the Gypsy Moon Tellers to name a few. (The tandem team of April Uhrin and Robin Rundquest, the Gypsy Moon Tellers, were the first performance storytellers to post video of their work on YouTube, beginning in June 2006).

The Ancient Art of Storytelling also has video from sessions of The Moth, stories from Toastmasters, kids, and English language learners, as well as campfire tales, Rakugo, Kamishibai, slumber parties, kitchen tables, and living rooms.

There are stories told in at least eight languages.

BTW, anyone can join the group, anyone can post a video, but it is moderated to keep it focused on storytelling.

* The fault is not the technology underlying the search box. Viacom's cable music channel, VH1 has been running a series called "Storytellers" since 1996. There are hundreds of (unauthorized) clips from this show currently on YouTube (lawsuit, anyone? yes!) There is more demand for Viacom's storytellers than "traditional" storytellers on YouTube, so until such time as demand changes (or supply shifts, say, should Viacom's lawsuit result in YouTube removing all Viacom content from its site), searching for "storytellers" is going to be useless.

Shout Out: YouTube's Canal Narradores

Congrats to Martha Escudero and her fellow storytellers over in Barcelona. Her YouTube Channel just made the midday news in Barcelona (you can skip ahead to 1:15 in the clip, from Televisió de Catalunya) as a must-see online destination.

Since Canal Narradores (that's "Storyteller Channel" in English) came onto YouTube 9 months ago, it has set the standard for quality production for traditional storytelling on YouTube. Even if you don't speak Catalan or Spanish, check out some of the storytelling videos. Not knowing the words, you'll actually learn a lot about gesture, voice, inflection, and pauses... and what works on the small screen. You can also see how quality sound, lighting, and camerawork enhances the performance.

And if you're going to be in Barcelona, don't miss Martha's storytelling series for adults, Contes i Cuentos, at the Harlem Jazz Club.

(Learn more about Spanish and Catalan storytelling at the ANIN, (Associació de Narradores i Narradors) website, which includes a directory, links to storytelling festivals and groups, and articles from their past newsletters.)

And I For One, Welcome Our New Cute and Cuddly Electronic Overlords

Last month in New York, the Toy Industry Association held the 2008 Toy Fair, the trade show where all the toy companies "preview" their new toys for the season (and get an early jump on orders for the 2008 holiday shopping season). Why does this matter to storytellers?

Meet "smart-e-bear."

At first glance, it's a teddy bear that sings and tells stories.

This is not new. Remember Teddy Ruxpin, the teddy bear with the built-in cassette player? Apparently, he's still being manufactured and still tells stories, although now with digital cartridges.

Here's what's new with Smart-e-Bear: he's got a USB port.

Which means, the songs and stories are totally customizable. Hook him up to the computer, and with an iTunes-like interface, you can manage and create the educational content, songs, and stories that the bears "knows."

But here's why I'm telling you this:

Imagine you visit a kid's bedroom. There's her teddy bear. She squeezes the bear paw, and all of a sudden the bear is channeling Bill Harley. Bill Harley's voice is coming out of the bear, telling Bill Harley's stories.

Or Donna Washington. Alan Irvine. Diane Ferlatte. Elizabeth Falconer (complete with koto).

Or you. (Artists, like the ones I've just mentioned, can have their souls absorbed by stories licensed to Intellitoy's digital matrix at http://www.intellitoys.com/... by the way, one niche they are looking to fill is stories told in Chinese or Spanish)

Oh, by the way... I should disclose that I'M NOT JOKING. Donna and Bill and Diane and Elizabeth and Trout Fishing in America have already licensed their material to be distributed by these talking bears.

I think the customization factor is the hook that's generating the buzz... for parents. This is a toy that will be marketed to parents, not kids (no commercials for this toy on the Saturday morning cartoon lineup. I'm guessing that there will be lots of articles instead in Parenting and Women's magazines). And maybe they will buy it. Hip parents who like creating playlists on iTunes will get into the programming of this toy. And practical parents, who aren't by any means frugal (not at this toy's price), but who like to think of themselves as savvy, will appreciate that you can adjust the developmental level of the toy to the age of your child-- extending the life of the purchase.

But good marketing to parents and decent sales doesn't mean kids are gonna love it. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that this will generate more recognition for storytellers.

But for the under 3 crowd, smart-e has to compete with Elmo Live, the latest incarnation of the electronic muppet, which can now tell stories. (Sesame Workshop was to have introduced an artificially intelligent Elmo cyborg at this year's Toy Fair, but apparently a time-traveling resistance fighter from the future came back from the future and destroyed the plant in China were these were being manufactured. This time traveler himself was being pursued by an Elmo-1000, and advanced cyborg assassin from the future to destroy the resistance fighter's mother....

but I digress.

Smart-e-bear. For the 3 to 6 age group, if my kids are any indication, they'd rather hear a Donna Washington or Bill Harley story from a CD on their boombox, or from an iPod. Having it come out of a plush toy is not value added for my kids. Now, if smart-e-bear had a Teletubbies-like screen on their bellies where my kids could watch a video of Donna or Bill telling a story, or failing that, YouTube videos of Star Wars recreated in LEGOs, that'd be value added.

BUT HERE'S THE VALUE ADDED FOR PERFORMANCE STORYTELLING:

Can't afford to fly out the big names to your venue?

For just $79.99, you've got his/her avatar, in a cute and cuddly, soft and squishy, family friendly format!!




And if you've got a technogeek on your Festival producing team, it would probably not be too hard to hack the smart-e-bear, and voila! You've got Kevin Kling! Elizabeth Ellis! Dan Keding! Don't want to confuse your audience? Buy a smart-e-dog and smart-e-cat and then your audience can differentiate Syd Lieberman from Connie Regan-Blake!

They don't eat. They don't demand green M&Ms in their dressing room. No lodging and transportation costs (think of how much greener your Festival's carbon footprint will be without all that jet fuel burned to get your talent to the site!)

Although... I'm not sure if these things actually move.

You might have to budget for a puppeteer to animate the toy's arms.

Plus, if you can get these things wholesale, or pick up a dozen at CostCo, you could resell them at your festival's souvenir stand for a markup. And if you do happen to have Donna or Alan or Bill at your event, their autograph on this little plush cyborg means even more ROI!

Good Things

Along with breaking the eggs, a good omelet needs some seasoning. So, to cleanse the palate, here's a list of some recent things that made me happy:

1. Just received two mint copies of Bil Lepp's story collections in the mail. I didn't even know Bil Lepp had published his stories. To my surprise, both books were autographed copies, and what's more, I didn't pay a dime for them. (Twenty-five bucks is what the market will bear right now on eBay. Not sure if that reflects acutal demand or the dire economic circumstances of West Virginia book sellers). I love how the Web enables peer-to-peer book swapping.

2. Listening with my son to an Anansi story, "Leopard's Birthday Bop" told by Ramona King

3. Discovering a delightful "new" storyteller on YouTube. I've got to hand it to Sister Unity, she's got the YouTube magic going on. Traditional tales in a nontraditional format. I love it.

4. Wiretap on the CBC (this is only tangentially related to storytelling, but I particularly enjoyed Jonathan Goldstein's recent fractured retellings of David and Goliath, and David and Bathsheba).

5. The Odyssey. Homer's The Odyssey.

Recently Cathryn Fairlee hosted an all-day telling of the Odyssey. It took seven hours, nine storytellers, and a whole lot of food to get through it-- okay, four hours for the story, and three more for the food.

Inspired by the gatherings of storytelling guilds in Canada who annually perform some epic work, such as the Canterbury Tales or the Kalevala, Cathryn has been hosting similar gatherings in California for the past three years. The first year, The Canterbury Tales, the next was The Mabigonian, and the next The Thousand Nights and One Night. But those days necessarily featured selections from the larger works. This year, she organized the tellers to get through the whole thing.

Illness took a few tellers out of the lineup (12 tellers learned a part of the story, but only nine made it that day). Stormy weather kept some of the audience away.

But what a treat... to take a day to just listen to stories. And to listen to a story that our culture knows by reference, but not by heart. Out of the twenty or so gathered to listen (and most of them storytellers), only half had ever read the Odyssey.

We're hoping Cathryn pitches a workshop to NSN for the 2009 Conference on how she organizes this. Basically, she sent out a call for local storytellers, picked a date, and divided up the books of the Odyssey. Each of the nine tellers told us the story, in their own style. The repetition of motifs and phrases, as well as the driving narrative, stitched the tellings together.

The day was not designed to be a polished performance. It was a private event, and intended as professional development for tellers. A chance for tellers to try out some epic storytelling in front of an interested and supportive audience (and they will repeat their part again in the Fall at a second hosted gathering).

And we were all very proud of ourselves for getting to hear the Odyssey in a single day.