For 25 Years, State Festival Has Nurtured Storytellers

by Maria LoBiondo

25th Annual NJ Storytelling Festival at Howell Living History Farm

A simple phone call. A batch of handwritten letters. A beautiful afternoon. Voilà: a storytelling festival.

That in short is how the first New Jersey Storytelling Festival got started 25 years ago when the educational director of Allaire Village, Kit Crippen—fresh from a trip to the national festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee—dialed Julie Della Torre with a proposition. She wanted New Jersey to have its own version.

“She knew the logistics. I knew the tellers,” says Julie, who got to work sending letters of invitation to all the tellers she knew to promote the idea of showcasing New Jersey tellers and to give a those just starting out as tellers a chance to test their skills in public. 

Twenty-five years later, the effort is firmly planted. This year the event was held September 16 in its fourth location, at the Howell Living History Farm near Lambertville. It took many more phone calls to get it arranged. More than a flurry of e-mails. Another beautiful afternoon.

Visitors sat on hay bales, benches or chairs at four different locations where rolling farmland and animals filled out the vistas. Howell Farm staff said it was the biggest crowd they had seen on a September Saturday, with an estimated 250 people who strolled from site to site to enjoy stories.

Julie Pasqua at the 25th annual NJ Storytelling Festival

Some things have changed, some have stayed the same. For many years the festival has offered morning workshops for tellers, educators, and all interested in story. A Story Slam was introduced more than five years ago to kick off the afternoon’s festivities.

The number of tellers is bigger—some 40 tellers now. Individuals as well as teams from swap groups sign up for 45-minute slots over the afternoon. Bigger, yet its roots have stayed the same: a venue for storytellers from novice to professional.

Julie Della Torre telling at the festival. (photos by Ken Galipeau)

Although Julie gave up the reins to running the festival after about ten years, Storytelling Arts’ tellers have continued to be involved as tellers, workshop leaders, and festival committee members. For a time the festival was affiliated with the Folk Project, a music and dance association, and Julie Pasqual attended meetings to keep communication between parties flowing. Helen Wise served as liaison with Grounds For Sculpture. I’ve served on the festival planning committee since 2005.

And in what might be seen as a fitting bookend to starting the festival, Julie Della Torre, with co-presenter Paula Davidoff, kicked off this year’s celebration of story leading the morning workshop. “Gleaning Insight from Critical Moments: Working Below and Between the Lines of an Oral Text” introduced new tellers and fortified practiced ones—more than 40 interested participants—with a deeper understanding of the storytelling tradition.

Interview with Storytelling Teacher, Diane Rudd

by Julie Della Torre

A Storytelling Chart created by Diane and her kids

Storytelling Arts began a three year residency in 2013 at Alexander Hamilton Academy in Paterson, NJ. I worked with 4 teachers the first year and then exclusively with Maureen Errity in fourth grade and Diane Rudd in Kindergarten. Diane Rudd’s goal was to learn to tell stories and integrate storytelling into her classroom. (See blog post: September 4, 2015 to see some of the work we did together) I keep in touch with Diane and she told me recently that she was busy setting up her room for storytelling. I decided to interview her to find out more. Last week we met and talked.

JDT: You told me recently, “I’m setting up the room for storytelling.” What does that mean, setting up the room for storytelling?

DR: That means to teach the students where to sit number one. Their body language number two. And the whole protocol how are they going to act when they tell or listen to a story? What’s their job, what’s my job?

JDT: And what do you tell them?

DR: I tell them to sit on the outer part of the carpet in a horseshoe. But, with 25 kids well, to sit close, but not that close. Cross-legged if possible, hands in their laps, some in chairs. It takes a while. Then we have our yellow tape border, one in front of them, one in front of me. That’s our stage area. It takes practice.

I start slow with them. We do fairy tales they are familiar with.

Maybe just two characters to start with. Grandfather Bear and Chipmunk is a good one to start with. Just two characters. I’ll have them draw one of the characters, or both. Then I bring them back to the carpet and ask them, “Now where do you think the story takes place?’ It’s all new to them so you have to go step by step with them.

JDT: Tell me about your storytelling sessions.

DR: For instance, if I want to get a lot of kids involved I’ll do characters. We did Boney Legs. I told the story, then we acted it out. That was fun because the kids really go into that and then they went back and drew a picture of what they thought Boney Legs looked like. I don’t like to show them the pictures. I like them to use their imaginations. They love Boney Legs. They want me to do it again and again.

We act out the stories, or parts of a story. You pick the kids who are really good for the parts sometimes. I model. I’m the mean, big Billy goat, I’m the little baby Billy goat, this is how I would walk. I’m the Troll. Some of the trolls are great and some of them are, uh, that’s a terrible troll. You can be meaner than that. You’re giving them permissions to be angry. You’re giving them permission to be mean. It gives them permission to act out all these feelings which are not really acceptable during the course of the day.

You’ve got to get the kids ready to tell stories.

JDT: I remember when we were there you were doing charts with them, mapping charts, character charts, problem/solution charts?

DR: I don’t have as many now because I have to hang up other things. But, I hang up the work they do with the stories.

Another chart in Diane's classroom

JDT: When do you fit storytelling into your day?

DR: I try to have storytelling either after reading or before a writing activity. It depends on what my goal is. If I want them to develop characters I’ll do a story with a lot of different characters. If I want them to do settings I’ll do a story with a good visual setting. It depends on what I’m teaching for that day and it depends on the group of kids, too. I tell stories about twice a week. Last year I made sure to tell stories on the days we didn’t have breaks for specials. I also break up a long language arts period with storytelling.

Or I’ll do it if they’re off the wall. They’re all over the place, can’t focus, then I’ll bring them to the carpet and I’ll tell them a story.

JDT: And that seems to focus them?

DR: Yeah, because they know it’s time to act out and have fun.

JDT: I know your curriculum, and I know the standards for Paterson in general. You work on finding the meaning in a story and Beginning, Middle and End and...

DR: Always Beginning, Middle and End, characters, setting, finding the problem and the solution. Storytelling ties right in with our writing program which is having them draw pictures and tell stories.

We are also teaching them to work indepently both personally and in small groups. While I’m working with one or two students the others have work to do at their tables. Storytelling fits in perfectly with this as well. I told the Gingerbread Boy and each table had to do one part for the story. One table did characters; one group did setting and so on.  They did a really good job. I put them all together and made a book of it.

Storytelling is fun. I enjoy it. I’d rather tell a story than read a book because, when you tell a story, they get much more out of it. Especially when you get to ‘what’s the problem in the story?’ How did the character solve the problem? Some of the things they say are amazing.

JDT: It’s amazing the difference in listening between read-alouds and storytelling.

DR: Yeah, when I read a story aloud they’re in la-la land. They’re not paying attention. You have to pull this one in or that one. With storytelling, they’re all engaged because they have to listen. If they want to act it out they have to listen. There is an extra layer that helps them get the most out of the story.

JDT: What are some of your favorite stories to tell?

DRL Oh my goodness. Lizard’s Song, Mabela the Clever, I did that for my observation last year. Tops and Bottoms. Goldilocks, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Oh, Frog and Toad: The Lost Button, The Lion and the Mouse, The Big, Noisy House, that’s a good one. Why Bat Flies??? (Diane was unsure of the title)  Wait; let me look at my journal. (She opened an old journal she started when we worked together in 2014.  Her goal that year was to learn how to tell stories and become a storytelling teacher. As she looked for and learned stories, she kept a journal of different exercises she did to learn stories, lists of stories and what made a particular story good to learn.)

JDT: You still have your journal?

DR: Oh yeah, I look back at it to remind me of the stories. Oh, The Little Red Hen. Oh, The Name of the Tree, that’s good. Another one is Anansi and the Yam Hill, remember that one? I love that story! Some of them better than others?

JDT: What makes some of them better?

DR: Maybe the more involved I get in telling the story.  When there is a lot of action, things they can identify with. It has to be a certain type of story. You know what the problem is with read-alouds with 25 kids? It’s always, “I didn’t see the picture.” With storytelling I tell them, “think about it. Whatever the picture is that’s the picture.” And they have to listen.

JDT: Does anyone else in the school tell stories?

DR: I think Ms. Z does. Maureen E. is now in second grade. Maybe she’ll tell stories. I’ll help her find some good ones for second grade.

I’m going to start right away. I’m going to tell the first day.

JDT: What are you going to tell?

DR: I don’t know I’ll find one. Last year I started with Grandfather Bear and Chipmunk.

Brainerd Residency 2017

by Luray Gross

It’s a rainy evening and I have not yet unpacked my suitcase after a four-day stint in the central Jersey town where I used to live.  I was there as the teller for a four-day storytelling residency at Brainerd Elementary School. Brainerd opted to have me see each of their sixteen kindergarten, 1^st and 2^nd grade classes for one 45-minute introduction to storytelling.  This seemed to work out just fine.

In each session I told three or four tales, including at least one story in which the children participated through chanting, singing, and/or movement.  My hope was to activate not only their mental image-making facilities, but to create a situation in which they helped the story unfold with their participation.  I was quite pleased with the involvement of the students and touched by their wide-eyed attention and the many connections they made with other folktales and with their personal lives.

Luray telling to Brainerd Elementary School students

Near the end of a session with one of the second grade classes, a boy I’ll call Manny raised his hand to say, “I have a connection to that dress story.  It’s like my mother.”  The first story I had told his class was the Haitian tale, “Tipingee,” in which the main character is left with her stepmother after both her parents have died. As the story unfolds, Tipingee asks her friends to wear dresses the same color as hers and thus help her stay safe. In my telling of the story today, I found myself inserting an explanation for the selfishness of the stepmother who offers Tipingee as a servant to a man demanding payment for carrying a bundle of wood.  I said something like, “When Tipingee’s father married again, his new wife was kind and caring, but after he died, something in her heart cracked, and she became mean and selfish.”  A few other students had comments and questions about the stories, then Manny raised his hand again to quietly ask, “Do you want to hear about my mother?”

   “Would you like to tell us?” I asked.

   

Manny nodded and quietly explained that his mother’s parents both used “bad drugs,” and sometimes they didn’t even give her anything to eat, but her grandmother realized what was happening, took Manny’s mother to live with her and took care of her.  “And she grew up and met my dad and got married and they had me, and now she is happy,” Manny concluded.  All simply told.  All from a deep place.

This kind of happening is far from rare when age-old stories are brought to life in a classroom.  Children explode with energetic laughter over silly antics and grow thoughtful when the dilemmas of characters resonate with their own challenges. One of the most rewarding things for me is when this occurs for a teacher.  That too happened at Brainerd School.  In another second grade class I ended our session with the Native American story, “Gluscabi and the Wind Eagle.”  In the tale, the larger-than-life boy Gluscabi gets fed up with the wind and finds a way to trick the great bird, the source of that element.  He succeeds in stopping the wind, only to discover how much we need it.  Then he must reverse his actions to restore the great bird to its mountain top.  I tend to end this tale by saying, “And so it has been to this day:  sometimes the wind blows so hard we cannot stand against it, sometimes it is a gentle breeze, and sometimes there is not a breath of wind at all.”

Mrs. H, the teacher, was sitting behind her students for all of the stories, attentive and drawn in, but the wind story was different.  Her whole body was leaning into it, and when I finished, she was the one who raised her hand.  “That reminds me of something our pastor said in a sermon about the winds of adversity.  That’s what they can be.”   Without her having to say more, I understood that she knew what that adversity felt like and had found a way to stand up in its presence.  When we saw each other again in the faculty room, that bond of understanding remained.   For me, one of the deep rewards of this work.

... And Justice For All

by Julie Della Torre

The term ‘social justice’ has been used quite a bit this summer.  But what exactly is meant by ‘social justice’? I decided to explore a bit to learn and to figure out how stories fit into this whole discussion. I started my exploration wide for terminology and understanding and then tried to narrow the search to pinpoint individual stories that might be used to start a conversation.

Before I describe my search, I’d like to go into a bit of rationale. For SAI, I do work in the Paterson School District, a district taken over by the state. Many of the students are living with problems associated with life in an impoverished inner- city setting. In my freelance work, on the other side of the Passaic River, I work in affluent, well run school districts. Here we all are in northern Bergen/Passaic Counties, side-by-side, and every morning, around the same time, all of these students are uttering the phrase “... with liberty and justice for all.” How do we understand these words?

In previous years, when I have asked students what this word ‘justice’ means, they usually responded with the word ‘fairness,’ but I believe ‘social justice’ is a bit different. Last year at the Detention Center we explored Super Heroes and how they fight for justice. However, Super Heroes fight one particular evil entity to bring justice to the land. How would a Super Hero fight such things as voter rights protection, fair housing, industrial farming, and systemic racism?

As an individual I try to become more aware by reading and listening. How can I make a difference?  As a storyteller, I believe I have a unique opportunity to make a tiny, tiny bit of difference. Brene Brown says, “If we choose not to get involved or pretend it’s not happening, we’re going against the very sense of connection that makes us human.” Noticing is the first step.

Now, folktales are humble things, but they DO come from the folk. The folk know about these social injustices and have something to say about them, often in a delightful and charming way.  How are social injustices addressed in the old folktales? Maybe we storytellers CAN be an instrument for change, if just the very beginnings of change. We can bring awareness to ourselves and our listeners as we search for stories and as we tell them.

But, I repeat, folktales are humble things. They are not didactic. We can’t put too much on them. We storytellers can think about issues as we search and learn stories and become aware of injustices. Simply telling and listening to particular folktales gives voice to injustices. Helping students think about social issues while discussing folktales will deepen the experience. But we must remember to follow the students’ lead. Fortunately, they know more than we think they do. Students are always observing, listening, reading the world and engaging in discussions.

Any didactic approach to telling a folktale or even leading a discussion will be disastrous to the tale, to the telling and to the listener.

And so I started my search for tales. Many folk tales address individual justice, but I wanted stories that would speak to social injustices. First I enveloped myself in terminology and in the state of education on social justice issues.

Definitions from various dictionaries and the Department of Justice include:

• ·      Justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society
• ·      Promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity
• ·      When all people share a common humanity and therefore have a right to equitable treatment, support for their human rights, and a fair allocation of community resources

While trying to define and understand social justice as opposed to individual justice, I discovered the following sites which proved helpful:

• ·      Teaching Tolerance website
• ·      Global Oneness Project
• ·      UN Declaration of Human Rights

As I read and learned more, I was reminded of collections of tales that I own. I pulled down four:

• ·      Fair Is Fair by Sharon Creeden
• ·      The Moon In the Well by Erica Meade
• ·       Once Upon a Time by Elisa Pearmain
• ·      Spinning Tales, Weaving Hope ed. Ed Brody, et.al

None of the tables of contents contain the specific term ‘social justice’, but they do list such terms as equality, fairness, justice and community. Each volume contained a story or two for my growing list of folktales.

Then I started reading more and more folktales.  Below is a list of stories I will use this year to help deepen my understanding and exploration of the term ‘social justice.’ This list is just a brainstorming list. I found many stories in which one individual helps a community, for instance “The Magic Porridge Pot” in which a young girl feeds a village with an unending overflowing porridge pot. I particularly wanted stories of community members doing good work together for the benefit of all of its members.

• ·       “Chief of the Well” (Haiti): any of the ‘keeper of the well’ stories would work. The water belongs to us all.
• ·      “Bringer of Fire” stories, particularly those with many animals working together to bring the fire to the community.
• ·      “Minu”: a wealthy man dies just like the rest of us. I found this in an old Cricket magazine. Julie P tells a version of this tale.
• ·      “Nyngara”: the children of a Nigerian village help heal the chief. Found in Lion on the Path
• ·      “The Magic Garden”:  a family (one young man in particular) help soothe the poor. Found in Stories of the Steppes.

I would love your comments and any additions that come to mind.