—"Year of the Adopted Family" book release

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Creating a Youth Storytelling Community One Kid at a Time


Most youth storytelling events are just that: events. Nothing may occur for another year. Until then, the youth have nowhere to express their talents.

This is assuming that you have at least one youth storytelling event in the area.

Even with intense organizational efforts, the youth may not feel like they were important to its success.

One youth teller stated in front of parents, teachers, and coaches, “No. This festival is not about me.”

For such a youth-centered event, the answer was devastating. The leaders vowed to change this perception.

To create a youth storytelling community, you will need to:
  1. Build an Event for Youth
  2. Develop Reunions and Gatherings
  3. Promote Storytelling Games and Fun
Build an Event for Youth
Expand your mind as to what could be considered an event such as a: party, social gathering, house concert, library activity, school assembly, campus celebration, civic meeting, contest, festival, etc.

An all-youth storytelling event is preferable, though youth tellers could share the stage with adult tellers and performing artists. Some places encourage artists to come from the community, thus inviting amateurs and professionals. Adult and child levels could be supported.

A festival allows for more than one youth teller to participate in the program.

For the three-day Weber State University Storytelling Festival, 87 youth took part along with 4 national tellers and 30 Utah adult tellers.

Most events will not have as much opportunity to highlight that quantity of youth. If the audience leans towards about 50-100 people in the audience, then 3-5 youth might be able to join the other performers.

Having one youth teller as part of an event would still be one more teller than what normally occurs.

Develop Reunions and Gatherings
A parent exclaimed, “My child has been anxious for this reunion for months.”

After 14 years, the Weber State University Storytelling Festival endeavored to hold a Youth Teller Reunion. The idea could be one of the first of its kind.

During the 2010 February festival, each of the 87 youth tellers received a “Save the Date” postcard. At the beginning of June, letters and RSVP cards arrived to the youth’s homes. Inside the letter the youth were told, “You are officially part of the Festival Family and will be invited every year to this new tradition.”

Youth tellers from other festival years could join the reunion, but that would come from word-of-mouth. One year’s worth of youth would be a large enough group for the kick-off.

An event involving any number of youth inspires a reunion. Three youth would be enough to have an ice cream party or a retreat. Besides, it is easier to arrange smaller gatherings. These gatherings may evolve into something bigger like a reunion.

A reunion need not be an expensive affair.

The Youth Teller Reunion of the Weber State University Storytelling Festival was fortunate to have the Ogden Eccles Dinosaur Park waive its rental fee for the space. The park already generated excitement. The Park offered for the youth teller and one parent to attend for free while other family members paid the group rate.

Out of the 87 youth, 24 came. With parents and family members, the numbers reached 76 people.

To further the low-cost approach, the families brought their own lunches. The festival donated items like water bottles, Frisbees, storytelling CDs, and posters as door prizes.

About a week previous to the reunion, 12 names of youth tellers were drawn to determine fairly who would perform for the concert at the park. After the concert, the families could roam the dinosaur park for as long as they liked.

A reunion provides a story-filled day to energize the youth to continue in the art.

Promote Storytelling Games and Fun
While at the Youth Teller Reunion, parent-volunteers led the youth in games. Once taught, the youth could play the games and teach others . . .possibly other kids in their neighborhood.

Provide a copy of these games, possibly through email, to the youth. Give them freedom to adapt the ones on the list or to create their own games.

The youth may enjoy playing the games so much that they will wish to form a storytelling club. These clubs may be as informal as kids wandering into the same space and “talking stories”. Some organizations, like 4H, may sponsor the gatherings while some schools may opt the storytelling clubs as after-school activities.

For storytelling game ideas, check out the book “Raising Voices: Creating Youth Groups and Troupes”.

I also feature a storytelling game each month as part of my e-newsletter. You can go to http://www.rachelhedman.com to sign-up for this free resource.

So what are you waiting for?

Your youth storytelling community may have the population of one.

But one plus one plus one plus one. . .it adds up.

Until we tell again,

Rachel Hedman
Professional Storyteller
Tel: (801) 870-5799
Email: info@rachelhedman.com
Family Famine Series Site: http://www.familyfamine.com/
Posted by Professional Storyteller Rachel Hedman at 8:36 PM 0 comments
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Tuesday, June 01, 2010

When is a Folktale a Folktale? Today’s Changes to Yesterday’s Story of the People

A folktale tends to conjure images of shrouded forests with country peasants, majestic mountains inhabited by isolated hermits, or dusty deserts pitched about by canvas tents of nomadic tribes.

A folktale is usually not thought of in a setting like New York City with its skyscrapers and bustling people.

Yet, a folktale, in all its simplicity, is a story of the people.

Time does not really factor into the folktale equation. We like to add the “long ago and far, far away” as probably a part of nostalgic and romantic notions.

New York City could be admitted to be as grand as any kingdom spoken of in classic folktales.

Universal themes are still the same from the past to the present. These themes provide the foundation for folktales.

There are three main areas that have changed:
  • Common Characters and Jobs
  • Self-Made Monsters and Disasters
  • Rural to Urban to Viral
Common Characters and Jobs
In the folktales of the “long ago and far, far away”, the main character or hero tended to start as a farmer. Oftentimes, some royalty made an appearance.

Today we continue to have our workers and our leaders, though we name them differently.

Jack’s mother may not be asking for her son to take a cow to town for some money (and have Jack bring back magic beans instead). Now Jack’s mother is asking for her son to take his college education and find a job in this high unemployment world. Jack is lucky to bring home some beans.

People like Jack and searching for the gold that would support their homes. Climbing the beanstalk is often the only way to do it. That could mean gaining further education or climbing the corporate ladder.

Folktales could center on the adventures of being a student. Passing final exams circulate as stories with the rituals and traditions involved.

Besides the perpetual student, we have occupations that did not exist to such a degree a hundred or more years ago.

Horse-drawn carriages have made way for automobiles. Sending letters by carrier have many times been sent through email. Books and programs could be placed on microchips and in software packages. Vaccines and cures have burst forth from healthcare research. And the list could go on.

Self-Made Monsters and Disasters
We still have killer crocs and devil pigs. We even have giants, though ours today go on to swallow fire and swords and become a finalist for “America’s Got Talent”.

One of the largest self-made monsters of the day: identity thieves.

So the idea of becoming someone stealing or becoming someone else is not new.

Consider the infamous folktale character “Master of Thieves”. If you delved into folktales from Iraq, it seems every other piece involves a man dressing as a woman or a woman dressing as a man so as to gain glory and gold or to avoid death and detection.

Now people are becoming other people without the clothes . . .only dressed in a social security number.

As for disasters, we live in a time when millions of gallons of oil could spill out from reckless offshore drilling and destroy coastline communities faster than any hurricane or flood. Though, not to be forgotten, these natural disasters still pound from the skies and the earth and compound the self-made disasters.

Stories of the past always involve battles, but now the bow and arrow and guns have made way for bombs. Earthquakes are not the only things that tremble the earth.

Rural to Urban to Viral
As we share the news of events with others, we can credit many words used to explain storytelling from country influences such as “spinning a tale” or “old wives’ tales”.

Whenever there was a barn raising or a celebration of some kind, the farmers and their wives would gather. The women had their area of their quilting bees and spinning wheels and would share stories and gossip while doing these repetitious tasks.

Then the printing press became more common and newspaper were born. Cities housed these machines and the stories disseminated mainly from these heavily populated places rather than the countryside.

Now we have the Internet. A person could zip a message to a friend on the other side of the world in seconds.

Our folktales and folklore are being chronicled mainly through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Stories are continuously before our faces. The question becomes, “Do we value them?”

You are part of the people. The answer lies with you.


Until we tell again,

Rachel Hedman
Professional Storyteller
Tel: (801) 870-5799
Email: info@rachelhedman.com
Family Famine Series Site: http://www.familyfamine.com/
Posted by Professional Storyteller Rachel Hedman at 11:45 AM 1 comments
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Saturday, May 15, 2010

The Story Seed Idea: 3 Ways to Grow More than One Version on the Vine

Jack grew a beanstalk overnight from one bean. A storyteller plants one version of a story in mind and then cultivates a unique version that can be as impressive as mile-high vegetation.

Sometimes one version is all a storyteller can find after hours in the library. Certain stories are easier to find than others. When researching the classic King Midas story, I read 72 versions before exploring how to develop my voice to the tale.

Most stories do not offer so much material.

So what does a storyteller do when nothing can be found?

3 Ways To Grow More Than One Version Of A Story:
  • Culture
  • Current Events
  • Classifying through Aarne-Thompson System
Culture
Delving into the culture of a tale is most obvious for folktales, though any story has a culture connected to it. Keep in mind that culture could include a region, time period, religion, social group, gender, or generation.

A story tends to state its area of origin. A folktale could be told in general terms and lack any reference to the cultural elements despite being labeled as a “Cuban” or “Ojibwa” or “Vakishamba tribe in Africa”. The story might have a word or phrase of the language that provides flavor. Otherwise, the teller could add foreign words.

A storyteller may find benefit in learning the social traditions connected to birth, marriage, death, or other events and merge it with the original story.

Books from the juvenile literature section provide excellent pictures so that the storyteller could create a pretend map of the scenery for the folktale.

Current Events
The Internet, especially Facebook and Twitter, have expanded exponentially how people access the news.

Through Twitter, people could receive mini press releases with no more than 30 words. A website usually accompanies the post for more details. This tiny version of news makes it possible to scan headlines of 100+ stories in a few minutes. A storyteller could click on the tweet that relates closest to the story that the storyteller may be working on at the moment.

For example, in the Aboriginal Australian story “Gooloo the Magpie and the Wahroogah” a magpie-woman named Gooloo offers to watch over the tribe’s children while the fathers hunt and the mothers gather fruit amongst the trees. When the mothers return, the children are gone.

A storyteller might find a newspaper article or TV broadcast that focuses on a kidnapping. Though the cultures may be different, the news would share the heart wrenching feelings felt by the parents. A storyteller may gain inspiration on how to approach the Australian tale by merging with universal emotions and themes.

Classifying through Aarne-Thompson System
Librarians have the Dewy Decimal System to find books. Storytellers have the Aarne-Thompson System to find stories from the folk and fairy tale realm.

The Aarne-Thompson uses letters and numbers to divide categories and themes.

For the motif of “Conception and Birth”, a storyteller would find those stories from T500-T599. Within these numbers are related subcategories.

Consider some of the types found under T500-T599:
  • T511.1—Conception from eating a fruit
  • T511.1.1—Conception from eating apple
  • T511.2.0.1—Conception from eating root
  • T511.2.0.1.1.—Girl called Gatherer because she is best in tribe at knowing and getting plants
  • T511.2.0.2—Conception from eating leaves
Underneath the numbers, often one or more story is listed. Sometimes there are complete bibliographies. A storyteller searches for the recommended books and continues the research adventure.

“The Storyteller’s Sourcebook” is a fantastic book compiled by Margaret Read MacDonald with the Aarne-Thompson System as well as the ability to search by subject and title. Although out-of-print, many libraries have this book in their reference section.

Even when a storyteller develops a personal or historical piece, discovering folktales that have similar themes could be considered explorative research. Inspiration comes from everywhere.

Suddenly the one version a teller started with could branch into endless possibilities. . .as endless as that beanstalk that Jack climbed.

Do you have your story seed?

Let it grow!

Until we tell again,

Rachel Hedman
Professional Storyteller
Tel: (801) 870-5799
Email: info@rachelhedman.com
Family Famine Series Site: http://www.familyfamine.com/
Posted by Professional Storyteller Rachel Hedman at 12:20 PM 0 comments
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