Storyteller as Alchemist

Mosaic of Hermes Trismagestrus from the Duomo di Siena

by Gerald Fierst

When I tell stories, my audiences inevitably give me new stories in response. I read folk lore and myth from around the world.  I listen to personal stories.  I create stories from my own life.  This artistic profession has given me a profound respect for the powerful effect a story has on the individual and collective psyche. 

Over decades of telling stories, I have come to understand the connection between the storyteller and the hermetic tradition of alchemy.  Popular culture imagines alchemy as a Harry Potteresque turning lead into gold, but in the tradition of Hermes Trimagestrus, (you can see the portrait of Hermes in the mosaic floor of the cathedral in Siena)  alchemy is the art of summoning energy to transform both the physical and spiritual plan so that (as we say at a good performance) time stands still, and we are transported to a new and more powerful reality.

Storytelling cannot exist in isolation, but needs the collaboration of the viewer as well as the artist.  Storytelling ( I will now use the term storytelling/storyteller instead of alchemy/alchemist ) transforms a personal vision into a universal statement. We open ourselves up to the experience which the artist offers, and we are transformed by new ways of perceiving ourselves and our world.   The craft of the artist is to know the formulae  developed over millennia and to reinvent the structures that have become conventional in order to enable the psyche to expand and understand the new facts being presented. 

Working with StorytellingArts, I have seen this process happening in audiences ranging from preschool to adult,  most powerfully,  at the Morris County Youth Detention Center where a group of storytellers has worked over years.  The residents are 15, 16, 17 year olds.  They wear prison uniforms.  They are small groups supervised by a guard. Whatever their old life was, it is stripped away, and they are neutralized. It is at once prison, and, as the superintendent once told me, “the last best hope to start again.”  It is a bleak, heart breaking place- AND YET.

The Jews say if you can save one soul you save the world.  This year the storytellers chose our theme as super powers and magic.  Jack McKeon and I began the year with a series of stories based on the concept of elemental powers.  Jack told a version of The Stonecutter in which a man cutting blocks from the mountain wishes himself to become the sun, a cloud, the wind, the mountain and, finally, once again the man, for a man with tools can transform the world and  is the most powerful.  The session that day was unremarkable, but the next day, when I returned alone, one of the boys entered the room bubbling with excitement.  He had been telling Jack’s simple story over and over again.  The other boys laughed and shared his delight, and the guard rolled his eyes and nodded in acknowledgement.  The boy had discovered a voice that could enlighten and entertain; and if the stories we tell ourselves lead us on our life’s path, this simple story could be the beginning of this child’s positive sense of himself.

Do I know this? - no.  Do I hope this?- yes.  Over and over, I meet people who remember a story I told years ago.  Grown ups who remember a story they heard me tell when they were children in school.  Stories are powerful magic, and, perhaps, on that day last fall, Jack and I made one boy’s life transform from the impossible to possiblities, for one man can level mountains.

Such visions are what the Hermetic tradition is all about.

In Praise of the Oral Tradition

by Maria LoBiondo

The word “storytelling” is bandied about so often these days, in so many different contexts, that I’m not totally surprised when people don’t understand what I’ll be doing with them as a storyteller. Some, I’m sure, expect me to open a version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales to read or appear in a character costume, maybe as a kindly grandmother fresh from the farm.

They must be surprised when they see me without a book or costume.

Now I’m all for reading books—reading is one of my greatest pleasures, both alone curled up in my favorite chair, and aloud, as I did with my kids when they were younger, especially at bedtime. It’s now part of our family lore how my daughter enjoyed extended bath times while my son and I sat together on the floor enrapt with the first Harry Potter novel. 

But as a storyteller, and especially as a Storytelling Arts storyteller, I’m interested in the oral tradition—an emphasis on the spoken word rather than the written one.

To find the stories I tell I read a lot of books, and when a tale strikes me—like Cupid’s arrow—I look for as many versions as possible, from as many different cultures as possible, before I set about learning it. I don’t memorize it; I picture the characters and the sequence as if it’s happening just as I’m telling it (for me it is!) and the words flow.

Recently I was taken by what author Julius Lester had to say about storytelling. Lester, whose Br’er Rabbit adventures are classics, wrote in 1985: “The page preserves a particular telling of a tale, but not the tale itself. The tale is merely the theme on which the storyteller improvises, revitalizing the tale and making it ever new. The tale can never be what is on the printed page because what can not be printed are the movement of the arms, the body motions, the gestures of the hands, which are as important and integral to the tales as the words. Stories are told in equal parts by the voice and the body.”

I’ve been a theater-lover for ages, admiring how actors transform themselves chameleon-like into new selves. I have fond memories of my brief stint before the footlights as “Mei Li” in a high school rendition of the musical “Flower Drum Song,” and in the Greek chorus of a college staging of “Iphigenia in Aulis.”

But in the oral tradition there is no “fourth wall,” the imaginary space between the audience and the actor on stage. For storytellers in the oral tradition and our listeners there are no walls at all. We’re all part of the experience as it happens at that particular moment.

Here’s what I say at the opening of many sessions so that we all understand what storytelling in the oral tradition means in the same way:

• Do you see a book in my hands? No? That’s because the stories are here—and I point to my head—and here—and I put my hand over my heart.
• We’re going to make the story come alive together. If I tell a story with no one listening, it would just be a bunch words. But when I tell the story with you, we’ll imagine what is happening in our mind’s eye, each in our own way, and all together at the same time. You are needed to make the story live.

Storytelling in the oral tradition offers an individual and a community experience. It allows each person present to take what he or she needs from the tale at that moment in time. And if we are fortunate to hear the story again—maybe from the same teller, maybe from a different one—the plot may be familiar but the tale will be new and we’ll be enriched by it again. 

ARTIST/TEACHER COLLABORATION: TWO HEADS ARE ALWAYS BETTER THAN ONE!

by Julie Della Torre

As those of you who follow the blog know, SAI received a grant to work in a school in inner city Paterson. We have written about the project before, but I thought I’d go into a bit more detail about my work with a remarkable Kindergarten teacher, Diane Rudd. We have worked together for the past two years and this year SAI will offer follow-up support. The following will illustrate how we developed our relationship and our lesson plans.

First, we had a year of getting to know each other. Diane needed to see what a storytelling session entailed. What would happen? How were students supposed to respond? How could storytelling fit into the curriculum? I needed to get a feel for her classroom environment. How much flexibility would be allowed? How rambunctious could we be?

The following year was more intense. Diane was going to become a storyteller and incorporate storytelling into her curriculum. We spent quite a bit of time planning before we started this two-pronged project. First, she looked at her reading curriculum and assessed her class. She decided she wanted to address, setting, emotions and feelings of characters, and ‘beginning, middle, end’. These were concepts she would be working on for the entire school year. The schedule allowed us to focus on one of these aspects each week. We fell into a routine in which I would tell a story and model a lesson one day and the following day she would tell a story and present the same lesson. The story repertoire for the class grew. Diane kept a record of every story told on big sheets of paper. Drawings, maps, story language hung on chart paper all around the room.

As we went along I was modeling storytelling techniques as well, which is how I learned to tell stories. We also met during the day for mini-workshops on specific issues. She kept a journal of her process for learning stories. A big part of the process was finding appropriate stories for her class. As she searched for stories w3e had good discussions about what story might be a good one to tell as opposed to read with the illustrations. The lesson plans we developed for her class were simply exercises I do myself to learn a story. As she watched and then practiced the exercises in her journal and finally presented them to her students she was learning the story.

The lessons included much acting out, usually parts of the story told, not the whole story. After working with the story orally, dramatically and demonstrating on the board the students went back to their seats and worked on paper. This routine of listening, speaking and then writing was a key component of the storytelling experience.

The exercises we developed could be used during the rest of the year no matter what story was read or told. Some of the exercises included:

Setting- storymapping. We actually made a masking tape map on the floor and walked the story, stopping to visualize the setting. After looking at real maps the students drew maps of the story.  

Emotions/feelings of the characters: Working from photos we gave the students vocabulary for different emotions. We practiced embodying these emotions. When we acted out parts of the story we encouraged the students to physically show us how the characters felt. Students drew their favorite character.

Beginning/middle/end: after telling the story we figured out what was the beginning, middle and end and we made tableaus. These were then drawn on paper in the proper order.

Working together with another professional is always stimulating and enlightening. I’m looking forward to a year of working collaboratively with colleagues, teachers and other professional artists.

The Work We Do

by Julie Della Torre

Karen and I attended an Early Literacy Seminar in May. The seminar was hosted by the Turrell Fund and, as they fund one of our preschool programs in Paterson, we were invited. All attendees were working in programs funded in part by the Turrell Fund.

The seminar was given by Dr. Blanche Podhajski, President of the Stern Center for Language and Learning in Vermont.

The lecture was centered on a program she calls THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF LEARNING. Using the alphabet as an outline Dr. Podhajski highlighted aspects of learning, particularly learning to read.  She emphasized over and over the ideas that reading can be taught, that any ‘program’ should be based in scientific research and that there is much more to reading than figuring out the phonemic awareness and connection. Underlying all of what she said was the concept that oral language is the underpinning of ALL reading. As storytellers, oral language is our tool.

Here are some highlights of Dr. Podhajski's presentation:

What do children need to learn to read? Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, Comprehension and Motivation. Babies are working on all of these auditorily and orally. When we sing to babies, bounce nursery rhymes and tell beginning stories to them we are preparing them for future reading. As storytellers we are always aware of how we build vocabulary, comprehension and motivation with our songs, poems and stories. Everyone wants to hear a story. Motivation is the heart of the matter.

Dr. Podhajski provided a checklist of ‘Skills for Thinking (cognition) and

Skills for Doing (behavior)’from Dawson and Guare, 2009. Storytelling and story listening are natural modes of building and strengthening these skills. Think of how much our listeners need as they listen: working memory, metacognition, response inhibition, emotional control, sustained attention, flexibility. All of these (and more) just to hear a story and then to comprehend a story.

Listening comprehension is still the biggest predictor for success in reading. (A Nation at Risk, 1983 and Podhajski 2000). Oral language is the basis of all learning. The Common Core Standards list speaking and listening as anchor standards from pre-school through 8^th grade. When our listeners listen to our oral stories and then participate in oral discourse and discussion they are building skills needed for all future learning. They are doing real work in a joyful non-threatening way. Our work is serious work.

Joyfulness and play are also essential for learning. Here is a quote attributed to Diane Ackerman: “Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” Joyfulness goes right back to motivation. Story is the way we learn and storytelling is playing with language and stories. What joy!

These few highlights were reiterated many times during Dr. Podhajski’s talk. For each of her 26 talking points (following the alphabet) oral language, listening, speaking and motivation were the foundation of all.

My SAI work with preschools involves presenting parent workshops. The Turrell Fund is providing a follow-up seminar in the fall and I/m hoping to attend a session on Family Literacy. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Story Work and Play

by Gerald Fierst

Gerry Fierst telling to pre-schoolers at the Zimmerli Museum

“Gerry, hi Gerry,” the chirping voices of three and four year olds fill the halls as they and I arrive at Stokes Early Childhood Learning Center. Four storytellers from Storytelling Arts have been in the school through the winter into spring, and the impact of our work rings in the corridors as the children call our names in delight.  Today is a storytelling day.  

Preschool storytelling is a holistic experience, involving body, mind and imagination.  Stories teach numbers and sequencing, vocabulary and conceptualization, history, social studies and science, but also values and awareness of the world around us. 

One of my favorite pre school stories is a Brazilian folktale of Monkeys in the Rain.  Swinging through the trees the monkeys play.  When the daily rain falls, and they get soaked, the monkeys decide to build a house, but the sun soon comes out and the monkeys never build the house that they will need tomorrow.  Lesson:  Build Your House Today.  The words are simplistic, repeated n patterns of three.

Hand Over Hand Over Hand, Its Fun!

Hand Over Hand Over Hand, Its Fun!

Hand Over Hand Over Hand, Its Fun!

Rain

Brrr, I’m Cold

Brrr, I’m Wet

Let’s Build a House.

Sun

Tomorrow, Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Next Day Let’s Play

But the language is only one ingredient of the experience.  Hands moving above one’s head in rhythm to the chant of the words.  Fingers falling to make the rain.  Clapping palms on the lap to make the sound of the rain forest squall.  Fingers connected to make the roof of a house.  Opening arms to make the returning sun.  Joyful hands in the air to proclaim play.  The whole child is involved in unison with his/her whole community.  Words, rhythms, and images are intimately connected to the affirming experience of organized and energetic activity within the classroom.  Emotional and cognitive experience is associated with verbal skill, and play becomes a basis for learning.

A story like this provides multiple beginning lessons: about environments- in this big world where do we live and how do we live; about the science of weather;  about the geography of the earth; about biology and the diversity of life.

Storytelling in the classroom is not entertainment.  Children who are placed into a rich verbal environment learn abstract thinking and become more self directed.  Storytelling is really about process, not product.  Most stories have familiar plots, but the experiential journey of listening and responding is the spark of invention that eventually can light a whole life.  An anthropologist once told me that the moment we became human was when we could imagine as if it were real and then set off to make it happen.  Every pre schooler should have a resident storyteller, not to read a book, but to tell stories and play and dream with words.