Meanwhile...six months later, a post.

Robert, with ice on his knee and staff by his side.

It has been a very long six months and I am happy to say that I have loads of good news to share! Here is some personal and organizational news all in a jumble.  First, our new massmouth, inc. board of directors helped us launch an Annual Appeal which raised nearly $3,000. This helped us meet the challenge of Mass Humanities our main funder. They had asked us to raise over ten thousand dollars more than we had raised last year to be able to run the StoriesLive® high school project for a 3rd year.  In order to demonstrate that our organization is worth supporting ( they loved the program) and that we had the infrastructure to be able to go on after our last $10,000 grant we had to really put the pedal to the metal. Our appeal was timely and really appealed to the Three Apples Storytelling Festival which was dissolving and as a nonprofit had to bestow it's remaining assets on some other nonprofit. Susan Harris, the treasurer and 'keeper of the flame' chose us and we received our first $5,000 outright gift on Dec 31st, 2012.

During the holidays my husband and I locked knees while dancing and I tore the meniscus of his right knee. This was just before we would leave to see our eldest daughter graduate from her PhD. program at Durham University in the UK.  So proud! She is a scholar, a gentlewoman and now, a Doctor of Philosophy. Despite hurting him so badly that he needed a wheel- chair for part of our travels, he managed to forgive me and recover enough to use a cane and have some fun in Merry Olde England. It was a lovely and brief trip. The man is an animal. I would still be on crutches but Robert heals quickly. And credits PT with his near complete recovery.

We both returned from our 5 whirlwind days in the UK to a load of
work. At massmouth we had sold out shows and the teaching of over 1,200 high school students in 9 weeks to pull together. Then it started to snow - a lot! And while it was snowing and everyone was home during the main blizzard in February and our schedule for StoriesLive® was taking a pounding from the weather... both massmouth and my personal bank cards were "skimmed"  and $2,500 was taken from our accounts before we realized what was happening. Think of this kind of theft is the gift that "keeps on giving." The disorganization and disruption of your daily life goes on for quite long time. I still get bills or cancellation notices from accounts that bill every every quarter, 6 months or yearly and were connected to those two cards. We are so thankful that the bank give us back the money that was stolen. Phew! We would've been in deep deep trouble without it!

We managed to complete a hugely busy season IV of story slams, sell out the Coolidge Corner Theater for a third year in a row and raise over $5,000 for the StoriesLive® program which, in its 3rd year, taught over 2,000 high school students to tell their stories. 

It was a near thing since the terrorist attack on April 15th made it hard for live events  that week - ours was on April 17th yet we filled the theater. But the high school regional slam was at the Boston Library and all of Boylston Street was closed, including the Library right up until a three days before the high school event. Luckily enough of the students still came and even though it was half the number expected the nearly 30 who performed were enough to make it an event to remember.

This spring I managed to remember to complete a syllabus for a course proposal in storytelling at Tufts University, my alma mater. I was delighted to learn last week that the course will accepted and will be listed and if enough students enroll, I will be teaching EXP-0003-F: Performance Art, Podcasts, and Slams: Storytelling in Theory and Practice to undergraduates at Tuft's Ex-College on Tues nights this fall.

This summer I will again be telling stories all over the city, three public sites a day, for Read Boston in late July and early August.  And in early July,  I will be leading a storytelling workshop for activists as part of the Camp Commons Week - Building Community Resilience at the World Fellowship Center in Albany, New Hampshire and the week will end with my new friends Mary Hannon and Chuck Collins leading a story slam, using the knowledge they have gained from massmouth story slams. This makes me very happy. Our inclusive, spread the joy,  each-one-teach-one is working and there are more  and more places where storytelling is known and respected.

One more bit of good news, this June I am being honored with a Creative Leadership Award at Puppet Showplace Theatre and will write about that in my next blog.

But the best news of all is that I finally have the time to write some of it down! Enjoy your summer!

Storytelling everywhere...ReadBoston summer, 2012

Reading and engaging,  Bob Sheridan was into it! Photo: Bill Brett  The Boston Globe

"Savings Bank Life Insurance president Bob Sheridan had the audience transfixed at Labouré Center in South Boston, where he read the Eric Carle classic “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to about 200 children as part of a ReadBoston event." I was up next and I had a blast riding on the energy of 200 little souls who were lapping up every image and turn of phrase in the traditional tales we told, together.

About my job...

Some days and in certain circles, I get a lot of negative feed back about my "job".  True,  I am not making any money. I work many long hours. Um, check.  Sorry, it is true; I do think and talk about little else.  So, sometimes I feel pretty lowdown particularly days where I need to spend money to keep things afloat. Yet, when I was asked to make a pitch about our organization I found it easy to make some pretty bold statements about what we are doing.  Below is a video and some of the written thoughts I sent to the newly formed Board of Directors.

1. While most people acknowledge that storytelling is  a human universal,  in our work we regularly make storytelling universally available to all.  This year we will teach all the juniors in Newburyport, Watertown, Everett and ALL the seniors of Lynn Classical High School.  Not just the, honors or AP or theater students. 3,000 students so far and in 10 schools this year. We teach in mostly Title 1 schools and we have included ELL classes as well.

“I teach literature to students who have many talents, but writing can be a major challenge to bilingual learners who are often immigrants or first generation Americans. To have Norah and the other storytellers come into our classroom ... was like unlocking a vault in my high schoolers. Every one of them, from the most boisterous to the shyest, took their moment in front of an audience to speak. For some, this was the first time they published themselves.” • Sondra Longo, AP Literature and Composition Journalism - Lawrence High School

2. We bring out the unique "voices" of students from truly diverse backgrounds...

Students like Maho (Lynn Classical High), known for being shy and stuttering, get up and present a vivid world of a war-torn 3rd world village that their classmates  never knew.  Students like Sandy (Boston Latin Academy), an award winning slam poet and practiced performer, get up and challenge themselves to take it a step further.  She told how watching her 4 year-old nephew die changed her life. Today, Sandy is at Simmons College and intends to become a pediatrician.

When students who live in a virtual “war zone” of poverty, violence and crime, heard Maho's (Lynn,MA) story about growing up in an actual war zone of Bosnia, their world and world view became much wider. When Sandy (Boston,MA) told her story of how a pleasant family birthday gathering devolved into the shooting of her 4 year-old nephew, students with more stable lives were able to connect a face and a voice to a story of human suffering that may have been every bit as exotic to them as Maho’s Bosnia. The students listen to each other with an intensity and respect that is beautiful to see. They are thirsty for this kind of connection and self-expression.

3. We are unique.  And have a proven track record. Our programs and organization, massmouth,inc.,  were created by storytellers and educators - steeped and versed in the timeless art form. Other storytelling organizations that are more famous and successful were started by writers, comics and theater people. This is not bad but it is not connected to the richer and noncommercial art form.  We all exploit the phenomenon of storytelling.  Meaning all story slams depend on the innate human ability to tell a story - with a little focus and direction.  We at massmouth go deeper. We explore and share the "art" of storytelling.

At the moment, massmouth,inc. is the only group that reaches a contemporary audience in clubs, cafés and even larger theater venues AND promotes traditional form of stories ( folk, fairy, myth, parable etc.)  AND  teaches, during school time, in the high school ELA curriculum. We run the only in-school, during instructional time, storytelling program and organize the only regional high school story slam in the country - if not the world.

Woolgathering 1.6 - Preparing Experiences for Story

-->Woolgathering 1.6 - Preparing Experiences for Story
by Norah Dooley
Theory and Practice for Storytelling as a 21st Century Skill


A storyteller is often said to be mining their experiences to create story. And the analogy works. Like gold, raw experience is not particularly useful or beautiful until cleaned, purified, heated and shaped. So with our memories. Unlike mining and preparing precious metal for use, the process of changing experience into story is not mechanical but selective. There is no "one-size-fits all" set of directions.

In the short form of story slams it is very obvious that EVERY WORD COUNTS. Actually, every word always counts in the best writing and storytelling. In beautiful examples of stories we see that  there is little waste.  But in the heat of the moment and in live performance, we can hear our selves get sloppy and throw in details or tangents that do not belong. What can help us with this? 

http://heirloomtomatoplants.com/

Next to a good analogy I love a good tomato! And I find the "mining" metaphor leaves me high and dry just when I need  some back up to be able to get to work. So I will now marry my love of tomatoes to my love of analogies and take you into imagination's kitchen to find a way to select the right elements from your experiences to tell your story.


If cooking was like the process of creating a story then experiences would be ingredients. And like the best fresh ingredients, say tomatoes for example? We would want to pick them when they are ready OR have  special recipes ready that call for unripe fruit.  We will likely harvest the vegetable whole, with a piece of stem or a leaf tagging along.

Only you know what part of that juicy tomato is best for your story. And being honest or realistic does not mean you must include stems, leaves, skin or seeds in every story that contains tomato. Your job as a storyteller/artist is to select the best ingredients for your 'dish' from the harvest you have. But before you try to do that? Try this exercise...

1.6 Exercise: Put in the whole thing in...

This exercise is kind of like the hokey-pokey. "You put the whole thing in"  and You take the whole thing out".  I fear this analogy is NOT working well so I guess I am back to just tomatoes and storytelling.
;-)

1. Pick an experience you know really well and you would like to tell about it...
2. Either while writing, audio recording or telling  a listener, add in every single, ridiculous detail you can about one element in your story.  For example: tell every teeny, tiny detail of your setting or about one character or about what one sense is telling you. Tell your entire story using all those details.
3. Then, tell your story again, choosing just three details from the huge pile you have collected. Are they the best three? If not, try again. Let yourself go... if you were picking tomatoes it would be like bringing  leaves, stems, vines, rotten tomatoes and horn worms into your kitchen.

http://gothamist.com/2011/08/05/market_fresh_cooking_with_heirloom.php

Storytelling: Woolgathering 1.5- Begin again

-->Woolgathering: 1. 5 Begin again

by Norah Dooley
Theory and Practice for Storytelling as a 21st Century Skill

Starting our story from a different perspective can help us see new aspects of our experience or a story's structure or it's deeper meaning. We want our story to get better and better with repeated telling. And usually a story will, if we listen to ourselves as we tell. And revise our work.  A fun way to accelerate the process of refining a story through retelling is to try some new beginnings.

Exercises 1.5: Begin Again

Beginnings: start again Try a new beginning for your story:

1.    Start with a sound, a sight, a smell or a taste that describes the place

2.    Start with a sound, a sight, a smell or a taste that describes a character

3.    Start with a sound, a sight, a smell or a taste that describes the time

4.    Start describing some action – major or minor – that shows setting

5.    Start a dialogue between 2 main characters.

6.    Write the inner monologue (thoughts) of a main character.

7.    Make —a statement … you might begin with a sentence that starts with—“Usually...” or “They say... “ All X are Y or so I thought but/and...” or “She always believed that...” you get the idea?

8.    Ask a question – rhetorical, of your self - of the audience -

Storytelling: Woolgathering1.4 - Play With it!

Storytelling: Woolgathering 1.4 - Play With it!

When you listen to a storyteller, you are helping create the story while you listen. After you hear a story it is yours. To play with…to learn from…to imagine with. Here are a few ideas that I share with the students who listen and create stories with me at Read Boston.

Playing is a powerful way to learn. And it is now scientifically proven to be important to our health and well being. From the TEDx site "Dr. Stuart Brown came to research play through research on murderers -- unlikely as that seems -- after he found a stunning common thread in killers' stories: lack of play in childhood. Since then, he's interviewed thousands of people to catalog their relationships with play, noting a strong correlation between success and playful activity. His book  Play  describes the positive impact play can have on one's life." Dr. Brown says that play and story are closely related. "Three dimensional play lights up the cerebellum"

So when your are having fun with your own version of a story you heard, you are creating and bein as you mix up what you heard with your own rich imagination. 

Exercises: Woolgathering 1.4 - Play With it!

1. Imagine a new ending.
A story with a completely or even slightly new ending is, a different story. It is fun to think of different ways the same things could end or different things the same events could lead to. It is like yoga for the mind. It stretches your thinking and strengthens your problem solving ability.

2. Draw some pictures.
What’s is your picture of the main characters in the story ? Make masks of your favorite characters. Or each one can draw a favorite part of the story. Put these all together and arrange in order, from beginning to end. Add any parts that were missing. Show these as a story line or tape drawings together to make a kind of story “quilt .

3. Tell the story through action.
Instead of telling the story with words see if you can tell it with your gesture, your posture and your facial expressions. 

4. Pretend.
Pick a character from the story that interests you.  Then speak, act, walk and breathe like that character for the rest of the day.

5. Post your idea in the comments below:

What is a traditional story?

What is a traditional story?

by Norah Dooley and wiki 

The author telling traditional tales to children in South Boston through the literacy program, Read Boston, 2012

Since we announced our Folk and Fairy Tale Slams, all sorts of people I thought would know,  have been asking me, "Huh? What is a traditional story?" In the article below I have tortured and twisted a wikipedia article into illustrating a Miller Analogy Test type statement. My main intent was to explore and hopefully explain the difference between traditional storytelling and contemporary 1st person narrative in performance. Secondly, I hoped to save time by lifting lots of the material for my explanation. This process is sometimes called slapdash, and when less transparent, also known as plagiarism or "lack of artistic integrity" and will be covered in another post. Just as soon as I find an essay on that topic from which I may quote... But I digress. 

The statement I am working with is: traditional stories are to contemporary 1st person narrative stories as traditional folk songs are to singer-songwriter's songs. Imagine an acoustic performance of Arrow, by Cheryl Wheeler next to a performance by Simon And Garfunkel "Scarborough Fair"  or any other traditional ballad of Great Britain.  

The song Arrow is a beautiful contemporary love song, with melody and lyrics composed by Cheryl. Scarborough Fair is a song in the public domain; melody by Anonymous ( not the hackers but in the late 16th century sense via late Latin from Greek anōnumos ‘nameless’ ) and words by Anonymous. In the article below I have substituted "story" or storytelling for every citation of song or music. There are way more interesting things to know about folk tales but this will have to do as a start.

Odetta was a folk singer of the late 20th century revival. She left a career in opera & musical theater to sing folk songs.

From a historical perspective, traditional folk music storytelling had these characteristics:

• It was transmitted through an oral tradition. Before the twentieth century, most people, especially ordinary farm workers and factory workers were illiterate. They acquired songs stories by listening and memorizing them. Primarily, this was not mediated by books, recorded or transmitted media. Contemporary yet traditional  Singers  storytellers  extend their repertoire using broadsheets, song story books or CDs, but these secondary enhancements are of the same character as the primary songs stories experienced in the flesh.

• The music  Storytelling was often related to national culture. It was culturally particular; from a particular region or culture. In the context of an immigrant group, folk music storytelling acquires an extra dimension for social cohesion. It is particularly conspicuous in the United States, where immigrants and  oppressed minorities strive to emphasize their differences from the mainstream. They may learn songs stories  that originate in the countries their grandparents came from.

• Stories They may commemorate historical and/or personal events. On certain days particular songs stories celebrate the yearly cycle. Weddings, birthdays and funerals may also be noted with  songs stories...Religions and  religious festivals traditions often have a folk music storytelling component especially a set of teaching stories. Choral music Stories at communal events bring children and non-professional storytellers to participate in a public arena, giving an emotional bonding that is unrelated to the aesthetic qualities of the music performance.

• The songs stories have been performed, by custom, over a long period of time, usually several generations.

As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present:

• There is no copyright on folk songs. stories. Hundreds of folk songs tales from the nineteenth century have known authors but have continued in oral tradition to the point where they are considered traditional for purposes of music publishing. This has become much less frequent since the 1940s. Today, almost every folk song tale that is recorded or written is credited with an arranger author.

• Fusion of cultures: In the same way that people can have a mixed background, with parents originating in different continents, so too music storytelling can be a blend of influences. A particular rhythmic speech pattern, or a characteristic instrument, cultural detail or element is enough to give a traditional feel to music, stories even when they have been composed recently. The young are usually much less offended by the dilution or adaptation of songs stories this way. Equally a electric guitar digital element can be added to an old songs story creating a new genre for the art form of storytelling.

• Traditional storytelling is non-commercial.

Please let me know in the comments below if this makes sense to anyone else but me? All the words in bold italic have been added by the blogger.