Trusting the Tale

Illustration by Arthur Rackham

    Seven Ravens, from the collection of the Brothers Grimm, is one of those stories in which a sister is unwittingly responsible for the suffering of her brothers. In the stories I’ve read, seven or twelve brothers are transformed into birds: swans, geese, or, in this case, ravens. The fate of the brothers is dependent upon the actions of their sister; she is their only hope for a return to normal human existence, but to save her brothers she must make some sacrifice.

In Seven Ravens, the brothers are transformed on the day of the sister’s birth. Because the babe was sickly, the father sent his oldest son to the well to fetch water, so that she could be christened immediately. All of the brothers ran off together and, in the ensuing commotion, the vessel in which they were to carry the water home was knocked into the well.  After waiting a time for his sons’ return, the father supposed that they had been distracted by friends or play and, frantic with concern for the sickly newborn, he spoke the words that must have haunted him for the rest of his life, “I may as well have seven ravens as seven sons.” At that moment, he heard a rustle of wings and, looking up, saw seven ravens fly over the house.

Of course, the sickly babe grew strong, even without the ritual lustration. In time, she discovered the story of her brothers’ disappearance and set out to rescue them. At this moment in the story, it becomes different from the other brothers-to-birds stories I know. First of all, the sister is very young when she begins her journey and she remains a child throughout it. Her journey takes her out of this world, to the homes of the sun, the moon, and the stars. In this last place, she learns that her raven brothers live in a glass mountain, and she is given a bone that will unlock its door. After another long journey, she reaches the mountain only to find that she has lost the bone-key. She despairs until, realizing that her own little finger is the same size and shape of the bone, she cuts off her finger, puts it into the keyhole, and unlocks the door. After this, the events of the story flow smoothly to the brothers’ change back into human beings, and all of the children return home to their parents.

I tell this story a lot. I sympathize with the poor father and pray that I will never be held to such close account for thoughtless speech. I am moved by the courage of the heroine, and I love the fact that, unlike many folktale sisters, she is granted her accomplishment while she is still a child. I love the images that come to my mind as I tell: the boys, looking at each other as the splash from the fallen pitcher echoes in the well, and therefore, each witnessing the transformation of the others; the seven great black birds flying over the thatched roof of the house; the sister walking through the world carrying her little chair on her back; the stars in shining raiment, each sitting in its own seat, and the little girl placing her chair among them. I remember the faces of my own children as I watch her earnest explanation of her predicament. Later, I see the thick, black velvet curtain behind which she hides to wait for the ravens’ appearance. I see the dull gleam of the mother’s golden wedding band at the bottom of the seventh raven’s wine glass, and I see the brothers and their sister start, hand-in-hand, on their journey home.

However, there is one moment in the story that I do not see clearly, that is the child’s self mutilation. My cerebral imagination by-passes the event. It is only accessible through the heart. I hope that the children to whom I tell the story also experience that moment as I do, but of course, I don’t know. I watch their faces as it happens, and I have never yet seen a sign of the horror that a vivid image of the picture must evoke. When the story is over, they often ask about it. The occasional fifth grade boy says, “gross” or “cool” when he refers to it. But children seem to understand that difficult tasks require a sacrifice and that the best things are worth it.  

Yesterday I was telling Seven Ravens to a mixed audience of about thirty people who were attending a holiday arts celebration in Madison, NJ. The storytelling site was a small, lovely alcove in the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts. Children sat at my feet on a richly colored Persian rug; their parents and other adults sat in chairs behind them. As the little girl in the story approached the glass mountain, I looked into the faces of the children on the front row. They were completely absorbed in the tale – their eyes were fastened on me, their mouths slightly open. I looked beyond them at the adults and saw that a young adult couple sitting on a bench at the side of the room were just as present in the story.

The youngest children in the room were between two and four years old, much younger than my usual audience, and as I moved toward the story’s climax, I began to doubt myself. I wasn’t sure that I should tell it properly. I was afraid of what the children might see. I thought that maybe I would just say that the sister put her finger in the keyhole without cutting it off. It wouldn’t be so different, I told myself. She would be using her intact body to release her brothers, instead of sacrificing her finger to her quest.

As I write this, it seems odd to me that I could have had this series of thoughts without breaking the narration of the tale, but in the five or six sentences between the time the sister realized she had lost the bone-key and the cutting of her finger, I went back in forth in my mind about what to do. Just as the sister realized that her finger might be a substitute for the key, I glanced up at the couple on the bench. They met my gaze and I saw that the young woman’s eyes were brimming with tears. In that second, I knew that I couldn’t betray the story. There was, at least, one listener who needed the tale intact. I didn’t dwell in the moment. As soon as the girl found the solution to her problem, I spoke in one breath, “She took the knife she had brought to cut her bread, cut off her little finger, and when she held it between her thumb and forefinger and stood on her little chair, it just reached the keyhole and the door of the glass mountain swung open.”

As I spoke, I enacted her movements, but when the girl entered the glass mountain, I stopped talking, stood still, and took as few seconds to see the interior of the mountain and to look into the little faces on the front row. The children’s eyes were open wide, but they were smiling. They knew that everything would be fine. I looked at the young woman on the side. There were tears on her cheeks, but she was smiling, too. 

Postcard illustration by Oskar Herrfurth

“Trust the story,” I say to parents who wonder if they should read the “real” fairy tales to their children. Sometimes, we tellers need to be reminded, too. 

Diane Wokltein's Stories Touch Us All

Diane Wolkstein was a teacher, mentor and close friend. I miss her greatly.

One of my favorite stories is ‘I’m Tipingee’ from her collection, The Magic Orange Tree.( You can hear this story on the SAI YouTube Channel ) It is a story of community, among other things, and it has brought community to me through the telling of it.

‘Tipingee’ became a favorite of an elementary school in Glen Rock, New Jersey. For 12 years I told stories in this K-5 school. I taught students and teachers how to tell stories. The school year of stories culminated with a school wide storytelling festival. Everyone, students and teachers, told stories for an afternoon. Before splitting up into small mixed age groups, the school population would gather to start the afternoon with an annual telling of Tipingee. Everyone knew the story; everyone chanted and sang as one. Imagine 350 kids and teachers listening so quietly and then bursting into “I’m Tipingee. She’s Tipingee. We’re Tipingee, too.” We all delighted in the experience together. Diane writes of this extraordinary community in the introduction to the 20^th anniversary edition of The Magic Orange Tree.

Professionally Tipingee has broadened my community as well. I tell ‘Tipingee’ in tandem with other tellers. With Elizabeth Nordell (SAI) I tell an English/Creole version. With Julie Pasqual (SAI) I tell an English/Sign Language version. In this way we spread the story to others.

‘I’m Tipingee’ will always have a special place in my heart. I thank Diane for bringing it to our storytelling community that we may pass it on.

--Julie Della Torre

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Diane Wolkstein grew up one town over from where I live, so when I first started appearing in local storytelling events, audience members often asked if I knew her.  I didn't at first, but when the opportunity availed itself to take a series of workshops with her I signed up.  I trekked in and out of a bitterly cold New York City to her apartment on Patchin Place in Greenwich Village.  There I was warmed by the stories shared and by her welcoming smile.  Her collection of Haitian stories, The Magic Orange Tree, is a legacy Diane Wolkstein gifted not only to the storytelling community, but story lovers everywhere.

--Ellen Musikant

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          There is a photo somewhere in my parents’ house of me, as a little girl, climbing on the statue of Hans Christian Anderson in Central Park.  One of the many advantages of growing up in NYC is that Central Park, and all of its marvels, were available to me anytime I wanted.  I did not attend any of Diane's storytelling there, but years later, when I heard about it, I could imagine my younger self, sitting listening to her, with the background of that beloved statue.  And, the year she asked if I - me, Julie Pasqual - would actually tell a story there, well, my heart about burst in pride.  It was an "I made it moment," just the fact that she knew my name floored me, but that she also thought that I was good enough to stand before that statue and tell to audiences that had cut their storytelling teeth on her, and Laura Simms, and other great and wondrous tellers, well - I was stunned.  It was another couple of years before I felt like Diane and I really talked, and that was about one of her passions - the people of Haiti, I had recently returned from working with a community there, and I could see the love she bore the brilliant, joyful residents of that troubled region.  We sat on a subway one day - I literally almost running into her, and swapped stories of the many smiles, and bright eyes we had seen on our visits.  Though she hadn't been in years, Haiti - as Haiti does - had not left her soul.  Some people just tell stories, some just write them, some just collect them.  But, Diane did this and more - she lived them with a full-hearted passion that set the bar high for all of us that have come after her, because of her.  If I ever get to stand before that statue and tell stories again, I hope her light will feel my soul, and guide my telling.

--Julie Pasqual

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When I was first starting out as a storyteller, I found in the library a copy of Diane’s The Red Lion. The tale is from Persia, and recounts a prince’s journey to face his greatest fear, which he must do to succeed his father on the kingdom’s throne. The prince runs away several times before summoning the courage to meet the red lion. And, of course, he is triumphant – but in a surprising way. I always enjoy telling this hero’s journey tale, especially to those on the cusp of adolescence preparing to face their own red lions. It has helped me face red lions of my own. I never had the pleasure of hearing Diane tell this story and I wish I had. The times I did hear her tell I could sense the passion she felt for storytelling and her intense desire to share it. She will be missed.

--Maria LoBiondo

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 I was in Diane’s physical presence only 5 or 6 times, yet her work has had a deep influence on me as a storyteller.   She was a model of grace and power in her telling and a model of dedication and scholarship.   As have other SAI tellers, I’ve found stories from The Magic Orange Tree especially compelling.  My favorites are “The Name” and  “One, My Darling, Come to Mama.”   The first for its sauciness and the second for much more.

  “One, My Darling” has sparked profound conversations among students.   How is it, many wonder,  that Philamandre, despised and neglected by her mother as a child, does not hesitate to lovingly care for her mother when the woman appears years later.    

  Although I rarely tell this powerful story to young children, I did tell it for a second grade class I had grown to know well.   At the close of the story, a hand shot up.  

  “Why,” demanded the boy, “is she so kind to her mother when her mother was mean to her?”  

     Before I could respond, another hand flew up.  It was Allora.  “I know.”

    “Tell us,” I said.  Allora stood to explain.

    “Philamandre was kind to her mother because she did not want to be like her mother.”   

    Students have also responded deeply to “White Wave,” a Chinese folktale that Diane published with beautiful illustrations by Ed Young.  I tell the story in my own words, but frame it by telling the children how Diane found the story and include, as well, the way she ends the story:

    Many years pass.  Finally nothing remains of the young man, the shrine he built for a goddess and the moon shell in which she once lived.  

   Nothing remains except the story.  That is how it is with all of us; eventually what remains of our lives are our stories. 

--Luray Gross

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   My story has something in common with the experience Julie Della Torre recalls. It includes a tale from Diana’s The Magic Orange Tree and there is community singing, too. However, the community in my story is one that feels far away from a Glen Rock elementary school.

 Almost fifteen years ago, I began telling stories in the Morris County Youth Detention Center. When I introduced myself to my first audience of about twenty teenage boys, they scoffed at the idea that I had anything to offer them, but as any storyteller would expect, most of them changed their minds somewhere during the first five minutes of the first story. After that, I taught storytelling workshops at the detention center every week and, although residents came and went, there remained a consensus that Storytelling was, ‘okay.’ That is, it was okay to listen to, discuss and, sometimes, retell stories, but most kids drew the line at active participation as tellers or listeners.

   One day, maybe five months into the program, I invited my friend and colleague, Mary Rachel Platt, to be a guest artist at the facility. The boys who were in residence that day had been there for a long time and most of them were frustrated and worried. They walked into the classroom and slumped into their seats, each one wearing the sullen expression that only teenagers can achieve. Mary began her telling with “Cric, Crac,” the ritual we all learned from Diana to introduce a Haitian story. Her friendly ‘cric’ was greeting with a rolling of eyes, so she just started the tale of Tayzanne, a magical fish.

   There is a song that recurs throughout this story. Its words are simple, but the melody is haunting. By the first time Mary sang it, the boys were engaged in the story. When the song was repeated for a second time, I thought I heard it softly echoed by someone else in the room. I truly didn’t believe my ears, but at the third repetition, the echoing voice was stronger. More voices joined in until, when Mary finished the story by singing the refrain one last time, she was just one voice in a choir made up of every boy in the room.

   Tayzanne is not a happy story, but it was the story those boys needed that day, a tale to take them away from their own worries, if only for the time it took Mary to tell it. There is a lot of Diana in this memory. She truly understood the power of story to describe and mold cultures, preserve rituals, and change lives. From her I learned to forget myself, the teller, and trust the story to catch and hold its listeners.

--Paula Davidoff

Storytelling and Technology

January 2013 SAI blog post

Maria LoBiondo

 

If you, like me, are tiptoeing your way into using digital technology and are alarmed by the prevalence of electronic screens in our midst, you may find a recent book some comfort.

 

Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human is a breezy summation of research and musings on why we love stories. An English professor at Washington and Jefferson College, Gottschall defines story broadly, including folktales, dreams, video games, and reality TV. He argues that we humans can’t live without story and that technology may change the form stories come in, but not their essence.

 

There’s a lot in this book that sounds familiar but I enjoyed Gottschall’s take on it. The paradox, the author says, is that stories in all forms are pleasurable and may temporarily free us from our troubles, but without some kind of conflict you don’t really have a story: “Beneath all the wild surface variety in all the stories that people tell—no matter where, no matter when—there is a common structure… Stories the world over are almost always about people (or personified animals) with problems.”

 

You knew that, right? But one conundrum that hasn’t been solved is whether stories serve an evolutionary purpose. Gottschall considers many theories, all still conjecture. What no one seems to doubt is that stories are part of what make us human, and that they are good for us.

 

Gottschall calls stories “flight simulators,” allowing us to safely train for big challenges in the social world. A fascinating example refers to research on “mirror neurons” that may help explain how newborns as young as 40 minutes old can imitate facial expressions and manual gestures. These neurons may be the basis of our ability to run powerful fictional simulations in our heads.

 

Gottschall also addresses the idea that story as we know it—mainly in the form of fiction—may disappear. He most surprised me with his suggestion that as digital technology evolves our attraction to story in ever more varied forms may morph into an addiction and take us over completely.

 

As a storyteller, my fear is that the bells and whistles of technology will mask the depth of what story can bring when we connect face to face through sharing and listening. Nourishing the human connection, allowing stories to nourish our hearts and minds, must never be allowed to fade away.

 

Maria believes that a story is a gift from heart to heart between teller and listener. A professional writer and editor, her love of fairy, folk, and wisdom tales has been lifelong, although studies leading to her bachelor’s degree in education from Boston College and years as a preschool teacher deepened her appreciation.

Maria’s life experiences have included work in low-income communities with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Utica, N.Y., and Providence, R. I., and participation in artist Judy Chicago’s needlework effort, The Birth Project.

She has told stories for the past 13 years at several venues, including Princeton’s Littlebrook School, the Princeton Montessori School, the Catholic Community of St. Charles Borromeo in Montgomery Township, and the New Jersey Storytelling Festival. She is a member of the Princeton Storytelling Circle.

Truth in "Lies"

Last week I told stories for nine groups of first graders: one in which a tortoise rides on eagle’s back, one in which a strange visitor arrives one body part at a time, one in which a wolf demands that a little girl sing to him, another in which a man’s doctor is none other than a python.  Midway through the second day, I realized I had not yet heard that oft-asked question, “Is that true?”

 

These six and seven-year olds seemed entirely comfortable in the imaginative world of folk and fairy tale, where every story is really a story about the human condition, providing metaphors which do not have to be analyzed in order to be useful.  They seemed to intuit that these traditional tales contain truth even if the events never happened.

 

As teachers and parents we want our children to value honesty and to be able to live in the everyday world where we cannot count on physical magic, understand the language of the animals, or witness a giant pumpkin’s sky-born seeds turning into stars.

 

Perhaps it was partly this desire to prepare children for “the real world” that was behind one teacher’s consternation when a boy in her class told me that his father had gone to a skeleton doctor (not an orthopedist, but a doctor that was a skeleton) and got better.  “I forgot to tell you,” she quietly told me as I left the room,  “He is always lying.  He’s been referred to counseling.”  Her concern for her student was palpable.

 

In the days since that session, I have found myself trying to “unpack” this brief episode.  Many of us often feel the need to soften or stretch the truth, and we sometimes to go even further in both our discourses with others and our internal conversations.  The stories told by this little boy, new to both the school and the community, may come from his need to be acknowledged and to fit in. 

 

For me, his claims certainly confirmed that he had absorbed the story I’d just told, a folk tale from Zimbabwe called “Nyangara, the Python.”  In the tale, a group of brave children accomplish a task from which the men of the village flee.  They carry a chief’s doctor, a huge snake, down from his mountain cave and the very ill chief, gently tended by Nyangara, immediately regains his strength.

 

Coming to this story as an adult, I have always focused on the irrepressible innocent courage of the children, rather than on the magical powers of the snake.  But I am guessing that the boy who spoke of the skeleton doctor was hearing something very important about a child/father relationship.  In the tale, the chief refers to all of the kids as “my children” and prepares a great feast for them because they were able to do what the men were too frightened to do.  It is clear that the children save the man’s life.

 

Though I know nothing of this student’s family, I do know how it feels to be able to make an ailing parent feel better.   I vividly remember the months before my own father had the back surgery he so needed.  I was seven, the oldest of five, living on a busy dairy farm.  In school, I was a rather timid second grader.  At home, I was the capable one who could feed and dress my baby twin sisters while my mother was out in the barn or keep my two other sisters occupied by reading to them.  Nothing, however, made me feel as useful and as important as giving my dad a back rub.  “Press hard,” he’d say as I leaned into the tight muscles along his spine.  “That’s right.  That helps.”  

 

Now my father is 87. His heart is failing, his memory in shambles.  Sometimes, instead of dutifully working on his checkbook or cleaning his kitchen, I tell him a story I’m working on.  He is an attentive listener, still a thoughtful man, one who appreciates the truths wrapped up in the “lies” of the story.  I am grateful.

 

LURAY GROSS works extensively in schools and the community presenting workshops and performances for all ages. She is a believer in the power of stories and poems as resources nurturing heart, mind, and spirit. Under the auspices of Storytelling Arts, Inc., she brings multicultural folktales into the classroom and facilitates response and elaboration, particularly through writing. Her own love of the spoken and written word, of the outdoors, and of music were all nurtured by her experiences growing up on a busy dairy farm in Pennsylvania.

Luray is the author of three collections of poetry: Forenoon was published in 1990 by The Attic Press in Westfield, NJ, and Elegant Reprieve won the 1995-96 Still Waters Press Poetry Chapbook Competition. The Perfection of Zeros, was published by Word Press in 2004.

Watching Snow White by Storyteller Julie Della Torre

 

There was no escaping Snow White in early 2012. At least two feature films were made of her, and made with big box office stars. So I took my adult daughter to Snow White and the Huntsman, and then borrowed a number of Snow White films from the library and sat down to watch.

Since  reading an article “Creating Variants With Illustrations” by Patricia Cianciolo (Blatt: Once Upon a Folktale), I’ve been studying picture book versions of stories I tell and noticing how the stories are informed by choices the illustrators make.  Different scene choices, styles, and character illustrations make their own variants of the story. As a storyteller, I have also been working with the Snow White story and its many print variants. I decided to explore this same concept of variants through film by watching films with an eye to specific choices made by script writers and directors. Here are some discoveries I made. Please note that my discussion of the movies will not be focused on the actors’ performances, the quality of the film or the director. I will not recommend, nor will I dismiss the films. These notes are not film reviews.

What I watched (Though I watched many more films, these are the ones I would like to discuss)

·         Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) with Charlize Theron as the Queen and Kristen Stewart as Snow White

·         Mirror, Mirror (2012) with Julia Roberts as the Queen and  Lily Collins as Snow White

·         Willa: An American Snow White (a Tom Davenport film  1998) with Caitlin O’Connell  as the Stepmother and Becky Stark as  Willa (Snow White)

·         Snow White episode in Fairie Tale Theater (Shelly Duvall 1984  ) with Vanessa Redgrave as the Queen and Elizabeth McGovern as Snow White

·         Snow White, Fairest of Them All (made for TV 2001) with Miranda Richardson as the Queen and Kristen Kruek as Snow White

What makes Snow White Snow White? What needs to be included so that we know the tale is a Snow White tale?

·         an evil, beautiful stepmother
·          enchanted woods
·          a particular season
·          dwarves
·          a mirror
·          a huntsman
·          a prince
·          magic killing objects
·         coffin, sleep
·          and of course, Snow White

I’ll concentrate on only a few of these.

WOODS AND SEASON

Snow White is a tale of winter and return of spring. Willa is set in the southern part of the United States. No winter here, but all the other films have scenes of cold winter, ice and frozen lands. Sometimes winter is just mentioned at the beginning… three drops of blood on the snow. Sometimes just including an animal associated with winter is enough. Interesting in Fairest of Them All that the film starts with apple blossoms falling like snow. Father wishes for a daughter with skin as white as snow, etc. There is snow throughout this movie. The enchanted forest in Mirror, Mirror is blanketed with snow.

Going over and into the enchanted woods is a part of all of the movies. The woods Barker goes through in Willa are realistic, but scary woods. The time she spends with the ‘dwarves’ is on the road in a traveling medicine show. Duvall’s woods are supposed to be just realistic woods. The others are truly magical. We know we are in an enchanted place. In Huntsman and Fairest we are transported to these woods with sweeping aerial views.

EVIL STEPMOTHER

Be she Queen or not, all the stories have a beautiful, evil stepmother. It’s a wonder that the title is Snow White since the strongest character is really that evil Queen. What’s motivating this stepmother? Choices made by scriptwriter and director give different impressions. In Huntsman and Fairest of them All, the Queen is surely beautiful, but more than vain, she is power hungry. Theron wants to rule the kingdom and live forever. She doesn’t just need to see Snow White dead; she needs to eat the girl’s heart. Richardson does eat the girl’s heart… or so she is led to believe. The message here is beauty equals power. Julia Roberts also wants to rule the kingdom, but more than craving power, this Queen is vain and terrified of aging. She can’t bear to see the daughter, young and beautiful. Redgrave is only concerned with beauty and age. O’Connell (an aging actress, not a Queen) is obsessed with aging and a fading theatrical career soon to be usurped by her beautiful stepdaughter.

Watching these women lose control and come unraveled was quite intriguing. Redgrave does it just with her hair. The more her hair is out of control, the more crazed she becomes twirling madly to her death at the end.  Only in Willa does the Evil Stepmother meet her demise by fire.

Some of the films bring in mythological allusions. In Mirror, Mirror and Fairest of Them All, there are explicit references to the moon goddesses through use of jewelry and moons. And peacock feathers can be found in Disney’s queen and on Julia Roberts. Is that mythological?

THE MIRROR

The mirrors were the most fun to study-- some fantastic mirrors and what a different message the physical properties of the mirror send. First of all, who or what does the stepmother see when she looks into it? Who or what responds? Do the mirrors have any other magical powers? In Huntsman and Duval’s Snow White the face/voice of the mirror is a man. In Duval’s the mirror is Vincent Price and is the narrator of the story, holding conversations with the Queen: a mirror with attitude. In Willa, the mirror is a vanity table mirror that reflects the stepmother’s last performance of Romeo and Juliet with all of the ovations she received clearly audible. Apparently, all mirrors are dangerous to her for all are covered throughout the house or locked up in drawers. In Mirror, Mirror, Julia Roberts walks into the mirror (like Alice?) and sees her beautiful self-reflected. She also holds conversations with the mirror (herself): another mirror with attitude.

I thought the Huntsman mirror was the most arresting. (you can see it here YouTube) Then I saw the mirror in Fairest of them All. The concept for this mirror outdid the rest. It’s a bit complicated. The Queen is ugly at the beginning of the movie. She is given an evil mirror which she breaks because she is afraid to see her reflection. A piece of it flies into the eye of the King. (Anderson’s Snow Queen?) He sees her as beautiful and he is now in her power.  But one bigger piece remains and it is placed on a special stand in a special room. This room is a dressing room and the mirror is a dressing room mirror, the kind where you see your full self-reflected on and on and on. I had done some study on labyrinths and one labyrinth is just such a mirror. You can lose yourself in a mirror like this. Very fitting. Richardson sees her whole self-reflected until Snow White becomes more beautiful and from then on Snow White reaches out from every mirror and answers “Who is the fairest of them all?” with “I am, I am, I am…” The remaining piece of mirror has other powers as well. It can show the Queen exactly where Snow White is. (I remember this quality in some other films as well) It can transport the Queen when she steps into it. It can transform the Queen once, to look like Snow White’s mother.  It is the weapon used to kill the huntsman. Quite a powerful mirror indeed.

Some other things I noticed and found intriguing

The sashes in Duvall’s piece and in Fairest of Them All were worth noting. Vanessa Redgrave’s beribboned crone twirls around making those beautiful ribbons impossible to resist. And the magical sash in Fairest quickly turns from a pretty, tied bow to a suffocating knot.

Puppets played prominently in Mirror, Mirror and in Willa.  Both movies start with puppets. The beginning of the tale is told through puppets in Mirror, Mirror. Later Julia Roberts is able to destroy the dwarves’ house by manipulating puppets. Willa opens with Willa (Snow White) playing out a fairy tale with her little puppet theatre. Learning of her stepdaughter’s interest in theatre, the stepmother is enraged when she finds this puppet theatre.  The whole of Willa is about acting and theatre.

I was fascinated to find a Betty Boop cartoon (1933) of Snow White on YouTube. It is of its time, but it does include many of the attributes of Snow White discussed above. Watch and notice the Evil Queen, the mirror, snow, the huntsman (prince?) the ice casket and the demise of the queen.  (Betty Boop 1933 Cab Calloway "Snow-White" on YouTube - Betty Boop)

Julie has been telling traditional and literary fairytales to audiences of all ages since 1985. Her nine years of elementary school teaching and her study of child development and curriculum have made Julie finely attuned to stories that are age appropriate. Julie says, “My background in education helps me to choose stories that are appropriate to students’ developmental levels. The myths and folktales which I tell are filled with ethical dilemmas which provide a catalyst for deep discussion and reflection. For this reason I prefer classroom telling.” 

 

 

My Heros!!

JULIE PASQUAL is a self proclaimed “creativity junky” whose first art form was dance. After graduating from New York City’s High School of Performing Arts, she danced and sang in numerous musicals across the country and Off Broadway. She has acted in everything from Shakespeare to the work of young playwrights in NYC high schools. Along the way she learned stilt walking, clowning, American Sign Language, and how to tell stories. Her storytelling work encompasses all her skills as a performing artist, as she brings every aspect of a story to life. Her stories have been heard in such venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New Jersey Storytelling Festival, and in schools, libraries, bookstores, hospitals, radio and private events across the tri-state area. As an artist for Hospital Audiences Incorporated, Julie performs in halfway houses, drug rehabilitation centers and senior citizen homes. She is also the voice for several children’s and young adult audio books for the Andrew Heiskill Library for the Blind and Handicapped in NYC. When not telling tales she can be found performing as a dancer in shows across the country and as a clown doctor for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit, entertaining children in NYC hospitals.

To really understand how ironic what I’m about to write is, you have to understand this about me – when I was a kid, I HATED school. Not disliked, not “I’d rather be watching TV” – we are talking full on LOATHING!!! It wasn’t that I was incapable of doing well, it wasn’t that I was bullied, and didn’t have friends, it wasn’t even that I didn’t want to learn – no, it was just that I was the proverbial square peg being cramped into that round hole. I am, and have always been, a person that NEEDS to dance to their own drummer – schedules, too much structure, make me buck like a horse in the wild west. School, with all it’s rules, and requirements felt like a prison to me, so much so that as a child on Sunday nights, I would stay up as long as I could, hoping to extend my weekend that much longer. But always sleep would take me, and Monday, dreaded back to school Monday, always arrived.

So, in my mind, if school was a prison, than the teachers, were the guards. Like an inmate who knows who holds the power, and the keys to their cells, I eyed them with wariness. I was obedient, and dependable – always afraid of their power of me, over what my parents thought of me, over my life. It was only when I got to high school, and had a teacher, who really SAW me, encouraged me, and in a way adopted me, that I began to see that teachers were actual humans. Mr. Andros, my teacher/mentor/second dad showed me that teachers are heroes who day after day sometimes literally go into battle in their classrooms. They work for little money, and even less respect, it seems, but they have the most important jobs in the world. And now, years after many a school day spend eyeing educators with fear and suspicion, I find myself totally OVERJOYED to offer them whatever I can in my role as a storyteller.

In folktales there are often magical helpers that appear along the way as the hero or heroine makes their way on their journey. Often times they’ll give the hero something that, on the surface at least, looks to be simple, of little relevance to the task at hand. But time and time again in these stories, it is that little object that enables the hero to succeed. I like to think of the tales I tell like little presents, like Jack’s magical beans, that once planted in the minds of a teacher, might just help them in their heroic work of educating our future. I try with each visit to a classroom, not just to introduce the wonderful world of stories to the students, but also to their teachers, knowing I don’t even know a quarter of what they know, but hoping, beyond hope that I have served the story well enough so that it’s wisdom, and timelessness, can be seen by the classroom teacher, and, if they want to, use it in a lesson plan, or a discussion.

Oddly enough, given my history with teachers, it is that aspect that often gives me the most joy in my work with Storytelling Arts. I get to repay all those people, those heroes, who watched me looking at them like they were monsters, but taught me anyway. Who saw my gaze of distrust and fear, and kept offering all they had –day after day. Sr. Ann Robin, Mrs. Franklin, Mr. Manchester – I don’t know where you are today, but believe me - I GET IT NOW!!! I understand what incredible work you do, and while I still live outside, around, and on top of “the box” rather than in it, and too much scheduling still makes my stomach clench – I am trying to repay the debt I owe you, and every teacher whose classroom, my reluctant younger self ever entered! It’s the most I can do, as all you teachers – you hero and heroines go on your daily quests to open the minds of the world.