Slam links

Marc Kelly Smith
Danny Hoch
SlamNation the Movie promo
Taylor Mali: What Teachers Make
Saul Williams

Days 23 - 27

Wednesday
Absent: Alex, Alina (ex), Lindsey, Cassie, Caitlyn, Kaitlin, Chip, Ash

We listened to Spalding Gray "Monster In A Box"
His work exemplifies "talking without a net" giving us the sense that at any moment he might come up against some emotion or memory that wasn't scripted. His device of telling about the writing of a novel closely fictionalizing his real experience allows him to tell his story in the first person and the third person.

Friday: Gwenda LedBetter part 1
Monday: Gwenda LedBetter part 2

Wednesday
Absent: Drew

Viewing of Rex Ellis story from "The Call Of Story"
Discussion of socio-political issues in storytelling and theatre. The tendency of revivalist storytellers to skirt or omit controversial issues vs. the tendency of theatre soloists to confront issues head on.
Also discussed the formation of the National Association of Black Storytellers.

Friday
Absent: Ash
We read the monologue from Anna Deaver Smith's "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992." Discussion of storytelling as subversion and Smith's coming at the King riots indirectly. We viewed her performance of 4 interviews from "On The Road: A Search For American Character."

Friday's Father

Our next 2 classes will be in the Carol Belk theatre. Gwenda LedBetter will perform Act II of Friday's Father in two parts, and lead discussion with class. Please be on time.

Final Project Guidelines

For your final project, design a solo performance work based on a combination of your personal stories AND received stories from world cultures. Included in your design should be at least 3 elements influenced by historical forms of storytelling. Also included should be at least one new story you have discovered from researching folklore and mythology.
Checklist for the finished project:

1. A brainstorming diagram of stories that you will draw from.
2. An introductory synopsis of the performance.
3. An explanation of your staging concepts including props, visuals, and music.
4. An outline of your performance from beginning to end including stage action.
5. A fully written version of your "key" story.
6. An explanation of historical influences.

Final Projects for seniors are due on Monday, April 28. For all others, Thursday, May 7.

Death of an Actor On Stage

From The Internet Movie Database

"Shawn won a huge fan base, however, touring in one-man stage shows which contained a weird mix of songs, sketches, satire, philosophy and even pantomime. A bright, innovative wit, one of his best touring shows was called "The Second Greatest Entertainer in the World." During the show's intermission, Shawn would lie visibly on the stage floor absolutely still during the entire time. By freakish coincidence, Shawn was performing at the University of California at San Diego in 1987 when he suddenly fell forward on the stage during one of his spiels about the Holocaust. The audience, of course, laughed, thinking it was just a part of his odd shtick. In actuality, the 63-year-old married actor with four children had suffered a fatal heart attack. A not surprising end for this thoroughly offbeat and intriguing personality."

"The irony of his death on stage is that it went "unnoticed" because of Shawn's strict instructions to stage crews. He would tell all concerned that he was liable to do anything at any time, including pratfalls, and that they were not to react to this. At his last performance, it did not occur to anyone that something tragic had happened until it was felt that his lying motionless on stage had run the joke rather thin. It was only then that Shawn was discovered to have died doing what he did best; enthralling his audience with his marvelous humour."

Underneath The Lintel

Our next reading will be Underneath The Lintel. Have it read by Friday of next week (April 4). If at all possible, you should see the play before reading it. the play opens this week at NC Stage in downtown Asheville. Wednesday is pay-what-you-can night with tickets for a $5 minimum.

Days 20 - 22

Wednesday. Absent: Kaitlin, Drew
Friday. Absent: Ash, Carly
This week we finished up some activities with form, working briefly with verse forms:
iambic pentameter and trochaic tetrameter. Some discussion of the use of verse forms influencing the development of content.
Discussion of 2.5 Minute Ride by Lisa Kron included looking at the diversity of stories that make up the composition.
Assignment to diagram the stories in some manner. Thank you Alina and Chip for you work.
We watched Hal Holbrook's 1967 performance of Mark Twain Tonight, a play created by the actor studying a large body of work and then compsing the program conversationally in the persona of Mark Twain. More on Hal Holbrook here. (Side note: Richard Corson's elaborate makeup for the young Holbrook launched his fame as a stage makeup artist. His book Stage Makeup continues to be a standard text in the art.)

Day 19

Absent: Alina (ex), Lindsey (ex), Ash, Alex

pop quiz to blank stares:

What is Kamishibai?

Who was Milman Parry and what did he discover?

What does Bånklesånger mean and what does it refer to?

Okay, I'm a softy. I let you have until Monday to tell me. But look out. Not next time.

Cowboy poetry. An abridged recitation of Robert Service's "Blasphemous Bill." A viewing of Waddie Mitchell telling "Belle of the Ball." An exercise in rendering our personal stores in rhyme.

Day 18

Absent: Alina (ex), Lindsey (ex), Kaitlin

Discussion of the aversion to storytelling in religions "of the book."
Forms of picture/object storytelling:
Especially significant this weekend are Stations of the Cross
Other forms still present today:
Felt/Flannel Board Storytelling: here's a link to a flannel board treatment of the folktale "Cap O' Rushes" (a source story for King Lear)
Power Point, Film Strip, Overhead Projectors.
Here is a link to an early form of animation that may have a storytelling function.
"Oldest Animation In The World Found In Burnt City"

Story told: Sky Woman's Basket.
Activity: game of "what is it?" applied to 3 little Pigs. the object can tell the story and the story can tell the object. The story itself can be considered an object that is modified to tell the story the teller wants to get across.

Assignments: Read "2.5 minute Ride" by Lisa Kron in Talk To Me.

Day 17

Absent: Caitlyn, Kaitlin, Cassie

Topic; storytelling with objects. Referencing World of Storytelling chapters 3, 4, 12.

Opening game with walking stick ("rhabdos") involving prop transformation a.k.a 'What is It?'

Marble Story: "Jason's Pearl"
String Story: "Cat's Cradle" "Jack & The Beanstalk"
Shoestring Story: "Rabbit"

Day 16

absent: Alina, Lindsey, Chip, Alex

Brief discussion of story mosaics- mostly working from Carly's example.

We watched and discussed "The Call of Story" dvd with storytellers Donald Davis and Carmen Deedy.

Story structuring formulae:
Donald Davis: Places, People, Problems, Progress.
Elizabeth Ellis: Ha Ha, Aha, Aah, Amen.
David Novak: To Place, To Reveal, To Relate.

Day 15

Continued conversation groups, creating story mosaics. We added "collective stories" with the personal stories. Examples: King Midas, Sleeping Beauty. The challenge was to fit the collective in among the personal stories. Notice the way stories can be used to understand stories. By putting different stories in relationship certain qualities are emphasized or accented.

Assignment: create story mosaics on your own, matching personal and collective stories. Diagram the mosaic and come to class ready to discuss.

Day 14

Absent: Kenny

We began a conversational activity to discover some of our latent "body of text."
I told the story of watching a lizard in my backyard when I was a boy. We reflected on that story and found other memories triggered by the tale. Chip took us on a virtual tour of the duck pond in back of his childhood home. From there we split into teams of 2 or 3 and did walk-thoughs of our places of memory. In the process, memories were recovered and stories were found. We then sat in conversation groups of 3 and 4 and began a mosaic-making activity in which each shared story is put onto a card and set in relation to previous stories.

Assignment: bring at least 3 new cards for stories to class on Wednesday.

Day 13

Absent: Alex, Kenny, Cassie

We watched Robin Williamson tell the tale of Tristan & Isolde. He shows one way in which a traditional bard may have mixed satire and local humor with the poetic and sublime material of the romance. Williamson's opening takes us from the present day into the story by way of the bus line to "Chapel Isolde." He makes jokes about America (California wine such as "My Wild Irish Rosé") even as he entrances us with the love magic that overwhelms the two heroes. He played the harp very effectively but when the story called for Tristan to play, he used comic pantomime. In these ways, the storyteller keeps the listener engaged with surprises and broken expectations and reinforces a sense of tribe with locally based humor and "in" jokes all the while creating a romantic tale that enchants our sense of place: Ireland's Chapel Isolde.

Looking Ahead

Welcome back everyone,

This week we will begin to explore story composition as we work toward our final assignment (see below). Towards this end, you will all participate in conversational storytelling activities intended to explore your own "body of text."
We will also continue our study of storytelling history.
As I look at contemporary storytelling and contemporary solo performance, I see a preponderance of confessional, personal narrative. Generally, the storytelling movement celebrates the attaining of wisdom, maturation and discovery via personal experience often drawing from family memories. The overall feel is one of wholeness and wellness. The solo performance genre tends to expose trauma and distress via personal experience, and concerns itself with woundedness and recovery. The overall feel is one of brokeness and endurance. We see in both the exploration of retribution, redemption, and responsibility.
In the midst of all this, I am left wondering what has become of the fictional tale? What has become of the 3rd Person narrative? The bulk of storytelling history concerns itself with the confabulation: the creating and maintaining of myth, fable, legend, and romantic history. In the post modern era, we are without the super structures of the past: pantheism, polytheism, monotheism, divine right, supernatural governance, etc.. In place, we have the cult of the individual, a pervasive solipsism in which we can only examine truth through our experience.

We will explore these ideas as we continue.

Here's what you have to look forward to as we begin the second half of our course:

Reading:
World Of Storytelling: Chapters 3, 4, and 12.
Talk To Me: "Underneath the Lintel"

Other:
Friday's Father Act II: tbd
Doug Elliott, "Groundhogology": tbd
NC Stage "Underneath The Lintel": tbd

Final Paper: Compose a monologue play incorporating personal narrative, folk narrative, traditional and theatrical storytelling.

Fridays Father Audio

Here are links to audio from Act I of Fridays Father by Gwenda LedBetter:

Track 1

Track 2

Track 3

Track 4

Track 5

Track 6

Blind Raftery The Poet

Blind Raftery was an historical figure whose verses are still with us. Robin Williamson's story of him can be considered a kind of bardic praise and wonder tale. Notice the use of formulaic passages and the constant quality of humor and mischief in his telling. The bard may not have been an entirely austere figure, if Williamson's performance is any indication.

Day 12

Absent: Tyler

Pellowski's definition (World of Storytelling, pg 18)

"the entire context of a moment when oral narration of stories in verse and/or prose, is performed or led by one person before a live audience; the narration may be spoken, chanted, or sung, with or without musical, pictorial, and/or other accompaniment, and may be learned from oral, printed or mechanically recorded sources; one of its purposes must be that of entertainment or delight and it must have at least a small element of spontaneity in the performance."

Discussion of "elements of storytelling performance." Here is a short list:

• Audience: presence and interactivity. Can be conversational or ritualized ("ho?"/"hey!").
• Authenticity and Spontaneity of performance.
• Spelling and weaving: "Rhapsode" stitch + song. Combinatorics. Repertory. "Body of Text." Flow and Consistency.
  
• Minimalism/Simplicity. Low tech.
• Lyricism/Vocal skill and variety. Consider that the pleasure of speech is in the combined effects of voice and word.
• Didacticism: Common Ground yielding Meaning.
• Affective Hook: involving the emotions.

More general effects:

• Communication of Experience
• Conflict
• Entertainment/Delight.

We finished with an interesting discussion of cultural and intellectual boundaries in storytelling. Consider: whenever you hear a story, regardless of its origin, it becomes a story from your life.

get the book...cheap

Check out www.abebooks.com for World of Storytelling.

The Week Ahead

Next week I will be performing and keynoting for the Timpanogos Mid-Winter Storytelling Conference.
Because of this, there will be no classes from Feb 18 - 27.
Instead, you will receive an extended mid-term assignment in the form of several readings and recordings. These will be distributed on Friday.
If you cannot attend class for some reason, please arrange for someone to pick this up for you.

Please Read

"World of Storytelling" Chapter 2: Bardic Storytelling

Re: Huh? Ah!

Check out Ira Glass discussing storytelling and the action of posing a question and offering an answer.

Day 11

Absent: Tyler

Finished reading "medea redux."
Compared with Diane Wolkstein's performance/video of Inanna.
Drew made an interesting observation in re: Inanna as a form of experimental archaeology, attempting to reconstruct the past. The problem might be viewed two ways:
1) How can we tell stories now the way people told stories there and then?
2) How can we tell stories now that have the impact stories had for people there and then?

I believe living theatre must be concerned more with the second possibility than the first.

Aesthetic Distance

This is a follow-up to the concept of aesthetic distance, a bit dated, but useful.

From "A Primer for Playgoers" by Edward Wright (1969):

Empathy and Aesthetic Distance
From the earliest theatre performance there must have been a relationship between two fundamental principles that are inevitable in the aesthetic experience. The exact names given them by our forefathers are unimportant. In more recent times we have come to think of them as empathy and aesthetic distance. With the coming of the realistic theatre these principles have taken on much greater importance, and in them one may sometimes find the reason for his appreciation or lack of it. Empathy means that the spectator experiences what he observes, both muscularly and emotionally. It happens inside him, although he does not suffer the full physical or emotional strain experienced by the characters on the stage. To him it is a vicarious emotion, though he may even to a small degree participate in the same physical action as the actor.

In contrast to empathy is a detachment that permits the observer's attention to be held and his emotions to be touched, although he is conscious all the while that he is only a spectator. Herbert S. Langfield has called this principle aesthetic distance. Every theatre production has some planned proportion of these two qualities. We must emphasize that emotion is involved in both. Our interest is there, perhaps even in equal degrees, but in one we are physically involved and in the other we are conscious of the fact that we are observing, not experiencing, what we see. We may be subconsciously evaluating it as a work of art.

The motion pictures have long since sensed the value of empathy and aesthetic distance. Every means of playing upon them has been used. Their melodramas have shown as much of the surface realism and personal physical reactions of the actors as was possible through the use of the close-up. Dramatic scenes are brought so close to reality that little is left to the imagination. A glance to right or left during a particularly strong sequence will show the contorted faces of the audience, the twisted handkerchiefs, and sometimes even overt bodily action. If one has been too similarly involved in the situation to make this observation, he need only recall the muscular tension felt when a given scene has dissolved or faded into one that suddenly changed the emotion. The motion picture has likewise found great use for detachment in its musical extravaganzas, huge spectacles, and historical panoramas where it can excel so brilliantly. In a less artistic instance, empathy is evident at an athletic contest. It has been felt at a football game when the spectator's team has the ball within inches of the goal and less than a minute left to play--his neighbors may almost be pushed from the bleachers in his effort to help the home team.

Empathy is not always so muscularly active. Women may empathize in the leading lady and men in the leading man. Likewise, each may subconsciously feel it in his or her attraction for the player of the opposite sex. For this reason, casting in itself becomes a vital issue, for beauty, grace, stature, voice, personality, and contrasts in coloring all take on their own importance in bringing about the proper empathic response to each player.

A danger of empathy is that one's emotion may be suddenly broken as he is snapped out of the situation he has come to accept or believe. This may be caused by a flickering lamp, a forgotten line or missed cue, a false cry or laugh, an extraneous sound, unstable furniture, or a characterization that the audience is unable to believe. Sometimes broken empathy comes from the audience or auditorium through coughing, a contrary reaction to an emotion by some individual, an overheated room, or some exterior element.

Normally, the melodrama will require a greater degree of empathy. Its loosely drawn characters permit the audience a greater leeway in self-identification, and the very nature of the situations carries a greater emotional force. Of the four play types, the least empathy is found in a farce, for here the spectator rarely wishes or needs to identify himself with the situation he observes. To be actually involved in such circumstances might be unpleasant, but observing them in someone else gives the audience a perspective, and this detachment, coupled with a feeling of superiority, brings about the unrestrained laughter that we associate with farce. The same may also be said for very high comedy and satire.

Empathy is found in varying degrees in comedy and tragedy. Both of these types are built on character, and when well written and performed can be so completely individual or removed from our own experience that there is little opportunity for self-identification and the empathy it supplies.

A play, if it is to accomplish its purpose, must happen in the audience. The degree to which it does happen is of vast importance and calls for a careful study by each artist, as well as some analysis by the spectator if he is to maintain a critical attitude.

Aesthetic distance is not the exact opposite of empathy, for it, too, involves emotional participation, but participation of a different nature. There is less of the muscular and more of the mental appreciation, although the personal aesthetic pleasure or enjoyment may be equal in degree. In the theatre it is most evident when we suddenly applaud a splendid piece of acting or a particular line. It involves recognizing the work of an artist and still believing in and being a part of a play, all the while conscious that it is a play and make-believe.

Artists have always been aware of the importance of this detachment. A painter puts his picture in a frame; the sculptor places his statue on a pedestal; the architect chooses to have his work set off with space about it. The conventional theatre of today depends upon an elevated stage, a picture frame created by the proscenium arch, a curtain, a brightly lighted stage, and a darkened auditorium. It has not always been thus. Aesthetic distance in the Greek and Shakespearean theatres was sustained by the language, the nobility of the characters, and the more formal presentation. During both the Elizabethan and the Restoration periods in England aesthetic distance was largely destroyed when spectators sat on the stage and oftentimes participated in the action of the play by answering back and injecting their personal remarks into the production itself. The same has been true in certain periods of other countries. It was David Garrick in England who restored it in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the spectators were driven from the stage.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before the day of the realistic theatre, actors acted as actors and audiences appraised them and their art as individuals. Playwrights often wrote beautiful or dramatic speeches which were, likewise, praised as just that by the audience. The "tirade" in the French drama and the "purple passages" in many plays were applauded by the audience just as was the brilliantly played scene by a particular actor. The works of Corneille and Racine are fine examples of this type of theatre. This was purely aesthetic distance, with the artist's art being judged as art. Some actors planned on the applause and consciously played for it. The great Sarah Bernhardt was one of these. On the other hand Mrs. Fiske was often very angry when applause broke the scene. She was more interested in the audience's thinking of her as the character she was playing than as the artist playing the role. The same could be said for most of the playwrights who in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries wrote in the realistic style.

Today much of the criticism we hear of the arena stage comes from those who are distracted by the proximity of the actors or by the spectators who can be seen on the opposite side of the playing arena. In one sense this might be considered a loss of empathic response, but it also is destructive of aesthetic distance.

Some productions today in our conventional type of theatre make use of entrances down the aisles, and even seat some of the actors among the audience. There are those who want to "put the play in the lap of the audience," and undoubtedly some theatre experiences could be enhanced by so doing. Hellzapoppin, with Olson and Johnson, still holds some sort of record in this respect. Entertaining as this piece may have been to many people, no one has ever called it artistic. On the other hand, it is possible to use the entire auditorium as an acting area, if the actor can remain a part of the play and keep the proper and predetermined artistic balance of empathy and aesthetic distance. Too close an empathic contact with the production or the participants can prove embarrassing to the audience.

The type, nature, mood, or style of the play determines how much empathy and how much aesthetic distance is to be sought. That answer lies to some extent in the decision of each artist involved, but more especially with the director whose task it is to balance one against the other artistically. This balance is one of the most important aspects of a theatre production. It involves not only selection and arrangement, but the all-important problem of
being just real enough to make the audience share with the players the feelings, emotions, and thoughts of the characters, and yet to possess sufficient detachment to weep without real sorrow; in short, to share the emotions without actually experiencing their unpleasant aspects or becoming over-involved in the production. Therein lies much of the theatre's art.

Day 10

Absent: Ash

We heard "Moby Dude" and began to read thru "medea redux."
Comparisons made between the se of dialect in the 2 pieces, and the effort to retell these stories from the canon of great Western literature. Does this retelling effectively destroy the original? Or does it rejuvenate the old story? We can make a distinction between the story and the text, is the story of Medea changed so much by the modern setting and dialect that it is no longer the same story?

Notice the enveloping devices in "Lillian" "Moby Dude" and "medea redux."

Notice also the tease of revelation in "medea redux" as our speaker attempted to remember the Greek word she learned from her teacher.

Consider: The syntax of surprise: Huh? Ah!
If a story is something that unfolds, a story-maker is one who folds the story up. Using the arranging of information to best effect, playing a game of hide-and-seek to keep the listener engaged.

Assignment

Read Chapters 1, 9, & 10 of "World of Storytelling"
Read "Lillian" "Moby Dude" & "Medea Redux" from "Talk To Me.

Please review your notes, blog posts and discussions and write a brief (300-500 word) paper defining at least five defining elements of storytelling performance. Send these to me no later than Sunday night, 2/10.

Day 9

Absent: Kenny, Ash, Carly, Kaitlin, Chip

Notes:
Reading from opening of "Lillian" by David Cale.

Part 1 moves through 3 different ideas:
1) Chrysanthemums
2) Overheard conversation re: depression
3) Idea of our lives unfolding according to a kind of order or plan.

Discussion of story a structure as a set of verbs rather than nouns
instead of: beginning, middle, end
think: to place, to reveal, to relate.

In this sense, the opening section of "Lillian" involves the action of placing: contextualizing the story by presenting us with a metaphor (chrysanthemums) and a query (does life make sense after all?)

Consider the idea that all metaphors are experientially based. For more: Lakoff & Johnson "Metaphors We Live By"

As such, is it possible that also, all story-thinking (ie. narrative mind) derives from experience. How is the world at large informing us about the shape and action of stories? For example: the cycle of caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly contains much that we consider basic to story structure: b/m/e, a primary character, a period of trouble ("the dark night of the soul") and transformation/metamorphosis.

We attempted unsuccessfully to listen to "Moby Dude" by David Ives.

In re: the concept of "spelling", I suggested we consider the science of combinatorics as it might relate to the art of telling a story. In "Lillian" we see a combinatorial in the way certain elements are presented in sequence, resulting in a unified work: composition. Remember: tell comes from tally: to count.

Day 8

We discussed the seven possible origins of Storytelling from Pellowski, Chapter 1:

1. The need for playful self-entertainment

We noticed how telling and retelling lead to more invention with language, suggesting that elevated language arises from such "playing."

2. The need to explain

We are familiar with the notion that storytelling may be a panacea for primitive ignorance. Why do the seasons change? Where did we come from? And so on. In this regard, storytelling continues to be an important method of education. However, the implication that "fanciful fairy tales" were the result of child-like ignorance and fear, deserves scrutiny. There may be an action of endowment wherein the story endows the surrounding world with the ideas and insights of the people, turning the world into our book of memory. This relates to #7: the encoding of social norms. We heard Chip tell the story of raccoon's tale in which he clearly imitated certain human behaviors, suggesting that raccoon's lost beauty was a direct result of his self-important pride.

3. Religious need to honor or propitiate

4. The need to communicate experience

Additionally, storytelling allows us to create experience via the empathic response of the listener. In this way, storytelling helps us amplify our own experiences and makes it possible for an individual to amass experiences, and in so doing, approach learning and wisdom.

5. The aesthetic need for beauty, order, and form

The aesthetic need can be understood as the desire to "make special."  According to Ellen Dissanayake of the University of Washington:

"Each of the arts can be viewed as ordinary behavior made special (or extra-ordinary). This is easy to see in dance, poetry, and song. In dance, ordinary bodily movements of everyday life are exaggerated, patterned, embellished, repeated--made special. In poetry, the usual syntactic and semantic aspects of everyday spoken language are patterned (by means of rhythmic meter, rhyme, alliteration, and assonance), inverted, exaggerated (using special vocabulary and unusual metaphorical analogies), and repeated (e.g., in refrains)- -made special. In song, the prosodic (intonational and emotional) aspects of everyday language--the ups and downs of pitch, pauses or rests, stresses or accents, crescendos and diminuendos of dynamics, accelerandos and rallentandos of tempo--are exaggerated (lengthened and otherwise emphasized), patterned, repeated, varied, and so forth--made special. In the visual arts, ordinary objects like the human body, the natural surroundings, and common artifacts are made special by cultural shaping and elaboration to make them more than ordinary."

6.To record history of ancestors and leaders

7. To encode and preserve social norms

See above

Day 7

Late Start Schedule, class was 30 minutes.

Discussion of Gwenda's work in "Friday's Father." Noted that her age and partial facial paralysis was not an obstacle to belief.

Discussion of storytelling origins.

Tell>Tally. The sense of 'to make an accounting." Hence a Bank Teller. Early writing shows lists and records. From this tallying comes also writing that recounts events: stories.

Tell>Discern. The sense of 'tell' as 'to find out." As in a doctor visit: we will check symptoms to tell what's wrong. Or a poker game in which we look for the other players' "tell" that will reveal their strategy.

Discussion of memory in preliterate culture. Distinction from memorization? Referenced Millman Parry's work with Serbo-Croatian storytellers in his research on Homeric formulae. Pellowski cites Parry and his protege, Lord, in a number of places. 

More on Millman Parry.

Quick exercise: Drew stood at the door and told us what he saw. In the 3 times that he recounted his brief tale, we noticed that his language developed considerably, employing greater detail, images, and suppositions as to the nature of the scene. Could it be that repeated telling leads us into the "verbal conceits" (word tricks) that form poetic, 'elevated', speech? Could this give a hint to the origin of poetic language and storytelling forms?

Assignments: Read Chapters 1, 9, & 10 of World of Storytelling

Also: gloss "rehearse"

Day 6

Assignment: Read "Lillian" by David Cale. The first monologue play in the book, Talk To Me.
News: The World of Storytelling is expected to be in by Wednesday. Please have a copy with you for class on Friday.

Today we met in the Belk Theatre to watch Gwenda LedBetter perform a section of her show, Friday's Father.
Consider that a generation of theatre artists embarked on a "hero's journey" into the world of storytelling and are making their return to the stage with the boon of their experience. Gwenda's work may be an example of this returning.

Comments following the performance:
Caitlin noted that the storyteller enjoys the prerogative of commenting on the story, introducing a personal reaction, etc. in short, being herself. As opposed to the actor bound in an impersonation.
Chip suggested the idea of the "actor's contract" and asked what the "storyteller's contract" might be.
What are the unspoken agreements between teller and listener and how might they be different from the expectation of actors?

The discussion raises concerns about the role of the actor similar to those explored by Bertolt Brecht in the 1930's and formulated by him as a style he named "epic". Note that Brecht was greatly influenced by the work of Meyerhold (biomechanics) and was doing his pioneering work in Germany at the same time that Decroux was developing his "corporeal mime" in France.
Links for more: Brecht's Epic Actor, Meyerhold's Biomechanics, Decroux's Corporeal Mime.
Also, an interesting sampling of Decroux's work on film.

Aspects of Stories

We talked in class about the possibility of common traits of story telling. One that seemed to show itself in the documentary and in my observations of other people telling stories is that each one seems to have a point. I know it seems a little obvious, but it seems to be beautiful in its simplicity. Each story at some point, usually the end carries some sort of moral, or punch line that the rest of the story was leading up to. Granted that all the stories that we have encountered so far have a western origin and it seems that, like western music, western storytelling is more concerned with becoming rather than being. Another common denominator seems to be that the stories we have heard have a direct emotional connection with the audience. That is to say that a story must appeal to the audiences emotion on some level, thus establishing a connection between the story teller and the audience. Thirdly, the stories appear to be didactic in some way or another, each one speaks to some quality or moral that people can relate to. Even the story of the bees emphasize cleverness, the "what killed the dog story" displays some value as to attachment to material things. These are the only common denominators I can see for now. Any thoughts?

Day 5

We met Gewnda LedBetter and discussed with her the storytelling revival and her path into becoming Asheville's "Story Lady" for the local "Mr. Bill Show" and Pack Library.

I shared an interview with Laura Simms from the book The Storytellers Journey: an American Revival, by Joseph Daniel Sobol. In the interview, Laura explains her epiphany about storytelling and describes the separation from her theatre group, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in 1960's.

I made comparison to Plato's allegory of the cave dwellers in which one member leaves the cave and discovers a new, real, world outside. Ironically both the new storytellers and the new actors were pursing similar goals of making new connections between audience and performer and bringing new vitality to the theatre. We viewed sections of a documentary about The Open Theatre, founded by director, Joseph Chaiken. Chaiken was greatly influenced by mythographer Joseph Campbell, especially his masterwork The Masks of God. Again, in Campbell's work, we find common ground with the new storytellers.

Vis-a-vis the experimental theatre movement, Joseph Chaiken came from the Living Theatre, founded in 1947, arguably America's oldest experimental theatre group. Theatre revivalism began much earlier. Following Stanislavski's revolutionary theatre work with Anton Chekov and The Moscow Arts Theatre, Vesvolod Meyerhold pushes for even more radical rethinking of theatre forms. Meanwhile, in the 1920s in Paris, Etienne Decroux, a socialist theatre artist, began to rebuild the theatre in his own way. Decroux created a form of actor-centered theatre that he called “Dramatic Corporal Mime.” His students included Jean-Louis Barrault, Jacques LeCoq, and Marcel Marceau. Marceau, more than the others, brought this art form to prominence in America and the world. Yet Decroux was not interested in the kind of pantomime we saw commercialized in America in imitation of Marceau. He wanted a radical stripping down of theatre to its essence: the actor in action. In 1931, he articulated a formula for the rehabilitation of theatre, the first three points of which were:

1. For a period of thirty years, prohibit all arts other than the actor’s. Substitute for the set of the play the set of the theatre, the backdrop of all imaginable actions.
2. During the first ten years, eliminate all elevation from the stage such as benches, stairs, terraces, balconies, etc. Actors shall suggest the ideas of “above” and “below,” although one partner may be beside the other. Then allow elevations only on the condition that they create greater challenges for the actor.
3. During the first twenty years, prohibit all voiced sound. After twenty years, allow unarticulated cries for five years. Finally, during the last five years allow words contrived by the actor [italics added] (Angotti and Herr, 1974).

Monday, Jan 22

Please come to the Belk theatre for class this Monday. Gwenda LedBetter will be performing act one of Friday's Father a solo storytelling play.

Day 4

Absent: Drew

We viewed the last half of our documentary and began to discuss some of the defining characteristics of the storytelling revival: the accommodation of children in the audience, the reciprocity between performer and listener, informality of presentation, etc.

ASSIGNMENT

in the comments to this post continue the discussion. Post at least 5 defining qualities of storytelling performance as viewed through the National Storytelling Festival.

Story Tally

Thanks to Chip, Alina, Drew, Cassie, and Carly for the story tally assignments.

Drew's list brings up the concept of "gists". Roger Schank refers to memory as involving the storage and retrieval of "story gists". We reduce an experience or a piece of information into a compressed form, similar to a file-compression program for the computer such as .zip or stuffit. That gist is retrieved and expanded when we make an association. For example, if I mentioned that my dog loved swimming and would jump in the water at the first opportunity, you might begin to associate any number of your gists with various ideas in my statement: dogs, water, pets, passion, etc...

Notice how, in your daily interactions with stories, one story will prompt another. Notice also, how we will discover lost memories in the act of conversation, essentially making active our dormant gists.

The concept of gists and of memory compression and retrieval has implications for performance. Firstly, many storytellers insist that they do not memorize their stories. Instead, they "learn" them. That is to say, they reduce the story to a gist that can be expanded in the act of telling in much the same way you might expand upon a memory in conversation. Secondly, in performance, the use of a literary or cultural allusion relies on the ability to activate the listeners' gists. If I say, "when I walked into the principal's office, I had a David-and-Goliath moment," I am activating your memory of the story of David and conflating it with my story.

Day 3

All Present

We continued viewing the documentary of the National Storytelling Festival 10th Anniversary.

We heard sample of Ray Hicks, Maggie Pierce, The Folktellers (Barbara Freeman and Connie Reagan-Blake), and Laura Simms.

We noticed the use of dialogue in the Folktellers performance of "No News, or, What killed The Dog". As a vaudeville routine the "story" dates back to turn-of-the-century entertainer, Nat M. Wills. The story has earlier variants (How the House Burned Down) that date back to the middle ages.

The point being that the storytelling revival has combined tent-meeting and rural "front porch" culture with stage forms. The national festival developed a showcase format to give audiences a "taste" of the various storytellers, using the term"olio" to describe the event. The term "olio" originally means "a miscellaneous mixture" ( Merrion-Webster online dictionary) in reference to food and comes to be applied to performance in the sense of "a miscellaneous collection (as of literary or musical selections)" coming from the minstrel show to vaudeville thence to storytelling.

We heard two "naive epiphany" narratives, one from Maggie Pierce and the other from Connie Reagan-Blake. The gist of such stories is: "I had no idea what this was until someone showed interest! then, surprise! I discovered I was a storyteller." The sense that storytelling as a vocation or avocation comes as a surprise reinforces the idea that it is somehow genuine, not contrived or intended, but fated.

Day 2

Absent: Alyssa

We began with a brief discussion of stories we are finding in our daily lives. Places we encounter stories include emails. Suggestion that directions can be stories. An exercise I often give storytellers is to give directions. A storyteller must be concerned with keeping a listener oriented. While looking for stories, notice when stories are referenced in conversation. How often are commonly known stories alluded to? For example on Day 1, I alluded to 2001: A Space Odyssey when talking about our "smart" classroom.

We listened to Jerry Clower's coon hunting story and began to trace the establishment of the National Storytelling Festival in 1973 and its efect on the storytelling revival.

We watched the first part of a documentary from the 10th National Storytelling Festival.

Notice: the rural setting, the "tent revival" aesthetic, the retelling of common stories (3 Bears, Cinderella).

More here about Mary Carter Smith.

Clower

This is the story that started it all. In 1972, Jimmy Neil Smith was driving with his students when Jerry Clower came on the radio telling about coon hunting. This brought about the idea of a storytelling festival in Jonesborough.

Jerry Clower "Coon Hunting"

Day 1

We discussed various interests some of you bring to this course. Notably,
Ash: folk storytelling, education.
Aleena (sp?): Audio books and literature. Questions of how changing formats influence content.
Chip: Education.
Caitlyn (sp?): Storytelling history in diverse cultures. We also discussed touching on narrative as a cognitive tool.

My rambling introduction of myself and our thesis condensed:
BFA: Directing, 1976, MFA: Acting, 1986.
A generation of theatre artists moved into storytelling even as some were moving into other forms of solo performance such as monolgue, performance art, and (for want of a better term) the one-actor-show.
We can trace a generational arc from the early solo actor works, biographically based, such as Mark Twain Tonight, Belle of Amherst, and Give Em Hell Harry, to other efforts of actors to reclaim the theatre for their own.
Mime era leads into popular arts of clowning, juggling, and circus, leading into "new vaudeville" which leads into spoken word.

We also discussed comedians as storytellers
Here is a youtube of one of the stories Bill Cosby told early in his career which had a big influence on me: Cosby tells about Go Karts
Compare this with Jerry Seinfeld's remarks while on Fresh Air: "The trouble with it is, you have this story — which is such a nuisance," Seinfeld says. "You know, in stand-up you just tell the funny part. But in a movie, the audience demands that you tell them some sort of story that makes sense. And this is a tremendous handicap for me." Hear the entire interview here.
Sienfeld interview with Dave Davies.
Admittedly, he is being funny. He does say that "when the story works, the jokes get better."

Some authors referenced in class today:

Kieran Egan "Teaching As Storytelling"
Roger Schank "Tell Me A Story: a new look at memory."


Assignment:
This week pick a day in your life and tally the styories you encounter. Identify where, when, and how you come across stories. Make some kind of a record or list and post it on this blog.

Syllabus

DRAM 358: Topics in Dramatic Literature: Storytelling.

3 credit hours • January 14 - May 28, 2008 • MWF, 1:45-2:35 pm

Instructor: David Novak (adjunct)
E-Mail: novateller@aol.com
Office Hours: by appointment

Catalogue Description
358 Topics in Dramatic Literature, Theory, or History (3)
Close examination of selected playwrights, eras, genres, styles, theories, or themes in theatre.

Overall Objective
To identify the elements and influences of historical storytelling in dramatic literature, notably modern American solo performance.

Course Narrative
We will study and analyze storytelling as a performing art by surveying:
a. the history of storytelling traditions in a variety of cultures,
b. the contemporary storytelling revival in America,
c. the history of theatre in Western Civilization, and
d. contemporary trends in theatrical performance.
Finally, we will compare and contrast solo performance by actors with solo performance by storytellers.

Methods
Readings, lectures, discussions, A/V recordings, writing assignments, journaling (class blog), and essay tests.

Core Texts
The World of Storytelling by Anne Pellowski
Talk To Me: Monologue Plays edited by Eric Lane and Nina Shengold
Various A/V materials, live performances, and resources from the world wide web.

Assignments & Requirements
Students are expected to attend and participate fully in discussions and class activities.
Each student is expected to participate in a class Web Log of responses and thoughts on class work.
There will be two essay-based exams: Mid-Term and Final.
Other writing assignments will include response papers to readings and performances, and opinion papers addressing topic queries.

Note: as of this writing not all course materials have arrived. As a result, reading assignments cannot be determined.Attendance
Attendance is mandatory. Two absences are granted for the semester. Beyond that, a 2 point deduction will be taken from the final grade (for each additional absence). Class notes and assignments missed during absence(s) must be made up by the next class.

Grading Policy:
Attendance = 10%
Participation = 20% (in class and online)
Assignments = 20%
Mid-Term = 25%
Final = 25%

*Extra Credit may be available as opportunity permits.

Grading Scale:
99-100: A+
95-98: A
90-94: A-
88-89: B+
85-87: B
80-84: B-
78-79: C+
75-77: C
70-74: C-
60-69: D
<60: F