Girl Power: Notes from the field

By Luray Gross and Maria LoBiondo - Storytellers for Girl Power! held during the KidsBridge to the Arts Camp 2013



One of the Girl's collage's exploring themes in “Tipingee”

The girls slouched on couches in a half-circle near the end of a very busy day packed with theater, dance, choir, songwriting, and visual art. It was day two of Kids Bridge to the Arts Summer Camp, and energy was low. 

            Then one of our nine middle schoolers asked, “Why is this called ‘Girl Power’?”

            “Where is your power?” we countered.

The girls perked up.  Once the conversation on respect and self-empowerment started, their ideas flowed. Physical power was mentioned first, but then came the power of our words, the ability to take control of a situation, being thoughtful. This was the perfect lead in to writing personal poems that reflected what each girl thought about themselves.

 
            Describing herself as the element of water, one girl wrote: “I would be snow so that I can cover bad things. Then I melt and they are carried away.” Another wrote, “My body is a temple…. Even when it is insulted, it stands strong always.”

The discussion about power also related to the story we would work on for the rest of the week: the folktale “Tipingee.” This story, published by Diane Wolkstein in her classic collection of Haitian folktales, The Magic Orange Tree, revolves around how spunky, savvy Tipingee, along the help of her friends, saves herself from being taken away by a stranger to be his servant. 

            It had quickly come to mind when we were choosing a story for a group of middle-school girls to hear, explore, play around with, internalize, and – ultimately – present for an audience of fellow campers (ages 6 – 13), teen counselors, and an assorted crowd of parents, grandparents, and other supportive adults.

             We wanted a story in which a girl, facing difficulty, takes charge of her fate, and a story that emphasized the role of young people helping each other. Our time would be quite limited, so we needed a story with mnemonic devices and a plot that would not be difficult to learn. Like many Haitian tales, “Tipingee” includes three nearly identical mini-episodes and a chant which listeners are encouraged to repeat. Overall, we wanted a story the girls could have fun with. We were, after all, planning for summer camp, not the heart of an academic program.

             We explored “Tipingee” through collage and journal writing as well as discussion. The girls keyed in to the emotions and examples of power in the story through both art forms.

            On Thursday, we decided how to divide the story for telling, and one of the girls suggested that her role would be to come up with an introduction. There was just time to try it out and be sure everyone knew where to begin and end. 

             As the hall filled on Friday afternoon, one of our very capable, but also self-conscious girls, came up and announced, “I’m not telling my part.  I can’t, I’m too nervous.”

    “But, Kyara,” we said. “We need you. We need all the parts of the story.”

     “Is everyone else going to do it?”

     “Yes,” we said, counting on no more attempted defections.

     “Okay.”

            Of course, Kyara did not leave her friends in the lurch.

 
        “I’m Tipingee, she’s Tipingee, we’re Tipingee too,” the girls chanted together from their places on the stage at the afternoon showcase, the culmination of the Trenton, NJ, Kids’ Bridge to the Arts Camp 2013. In a week, “our” girls had become a cohesive and powerful group of storytellers. Proud as any parent might be, we watched and listened from the back of the crowded hall.

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.

The Need to be Heard, To Express, To Communicate

It's hard to think, or write, or even talk about anything right now, while so many of us in this region are whirling off balance over the sheer devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy.  But as I have been moving through my days this past week, what has caught my attention, as it almost always does (me being a storyteller, after all) are the stories people have and are sharing.  This even is so large and so all-encompassing for those of us in this area, that everyone has a tale to tell.  Whether it be stories of complete safety, or utter destruction, people seem to be yearning to share what their lives have been like in the last seven days.  I have seen time and time again this NEED, this absolutely primal need, to express what is in us, by way of a story.

 

 In the last year, I have been dazzled on so many occasions by how much storytelling is about relationship.  The relationship the teller has to the tale, the tale to current events, the tale to the audience, but the big one I keep coming back to is the relationship between the teller and the audience.  The way there really isn't a story until there is someone to hear it, before that, what is it?  It's a series of events.  But when there is someone to listen, someone to "hold" the words, the images, the experiences - THAT'S what makes a story come to life, whether it be a folktale or a person's saga of seeing their belongings blow away in a  storm.  It's the listening, as much as the telling - it's the communication between the teller of the tale and the listener - its relationship between one human being and another.

 

That's why storytelling has been around so long, and always will be.  Nothing electronic, nothing on our beloved i-phones, i-pads, or i-pods, that we were so desperately trying to charge this week (and I was as STRESSED out about this than anyone - believe me!!) can replace this basic human connection, this basic need - to be heard, to express, to communicate.  As we all struggle to get back to "normal", I think it might be nice to - along with remembering to be thankful for light, heat, water, plumbing, and public transportation, to remember that along with these things - and food and water - that there is a basic need in us all to have our stories told and listened to.  To communicate what is in us, to those who are around us, and in this beautiful way, we make community. 

 

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.