March 16

Happy St. Patricks Day. here is a link to Eddie Lenihan, Irish Seanachie

As we approach working on personal stories, check out these popular personal story venues:

Story Corps
The Moth
2nd Story
This American Life

Tuesday, March 9

Mara, Diana, Gwen, and Chris were present. There may have been confusion because of the "Friday on Tuesday" schedule but we did indeed hold class.

Here is a mid-term quiz for all of you:

DRAMA 126, Basic Storytelling • Instructor: Novak

Name:__________________________________________Date:

You can submit this in class, 3/16, or via email to: novateller@aol.com

I.In her introduction, Sawyer quotes The Crock of Gold: “...what the heart knows today the head will understand tomorrow.”
What does this mean to you?



How does the storyteller involve “the heart” of the listener?



II.Define the following terms:

Scald
Ollamh
Bard
Pinkerdd
Mabinog

III.Define these additional terms, not found in Sawyer:

Aoidos
Bankelsanger
Kamishibai

IV.Re: Origins of storytelling, we discussed the Seneca story of Grandfather Stone.

How might we “get stories from stones” or other aspects of the natural world?




Give an example of a pattern from the natural world that matches a familiar story.




V.After our hula lesson we discussed qualities from hula that we might invoke in telling stories.

What are some of these qualities and how can we use them in our storytelling?

Fables

For next week - you will be given a quiz on the first 127 pages of Ruth Sawyer "The Way of the Storyteller." Be ready!

Tonight we began a few notes related to the reading assignment comparing the 3 stories:

Eros & Psyche
Beauty & The Beast
East of the Sun and West of the Moon

I presented the ideas of "spelling" and "combinatorics." When we spell a word (example "art" "rat" "tar") we work with a limited set of letters to create a limitless set of ideas. The 3 words referenced above are created from the same 3 letters arranged into different combinations. The art of spelling is the art of making the right combination of elements to create the "spell." In this sense, spelling is a magical act. The right combination yields the right spell. In the same way that different words are spelled with the same letters, different stories can be "spelled" with the same motifs.

We then discussed the 4 fables:
The Tortoise & Hare
The Goose With Golden Eggs
The Fox & Grapes
The Man, Boy & Donkey

We did an exercise with Tim and Ali looking out the door and telling us what they saw in the hallway. the hallway was always the same, but the tellings were very different. The way the storyteller "sees" the stories results in different tellings.

Concepts from Kieran Egan ("Teaching As Storytelling")
Binary Organization: setting up opposites in the creation of the story: slow v. fast, old v. young, proud v. humble, etc.

Affective Hook: involve the emotions and feelings in order to involve the mind: create a feeling for the the pride of the Hare or the greed of the farmer, the thirst of the fox, etc.. (We had a strong example in discussing the free pancakes at IHOP as a motivation for the man with the golden eggs!)

We played the game of "What is it?" with a marking pen.

Discussion: Syntax of Surprise = Huh? Ah!

Hula Night

Last Tuesday we had class in Holly Library with Julie Alstchul, Hula Instructor.

We learned some of the basic steps and a portion of the hula dance that tells the creation story. We noticed how many of the gestures were similar to American Sign Language ("tree" for example) and otherwise were easy to understand: "earth" "fire" "stars" etc.

Some general qualities to look for as we invoke "the spirit of hula" in our storytelling:

Let the body have a voice.
Involve the entire body in the gesture, head-to-toe.
Use rhythm and continuity.
Be "rooted" to the earth.

For next week:

Read and learn the 4 fables in Coles:
The Hare & The Tortoise pg 177
The Fox & The Grapes pg 178
The Goose With The Godlen Eggs pg 178
The Man, The Boy and The Donkey pg 179

Day 4

Next week class will be conducted by guest storyteller/instructor, Gwenda LedBetter. In 1961 Gwenda LedBetter began work as a professional storyteller in Asheville, North Carolina. She worked as storyteller-in-residence for the public library and on local television as 'the story lady.' She has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival many times. In 2007, she was awarded the Circle of Excellence from the National Storytelling Network.

For class with Gwenda, please read the following stories from Joanna Cole, Best-Loved Folktales of the World:

Beauty and the Beast, page 8

Eros and Psyche, page 180

East of the Sun and West of the Moon, page 287

Class Notes for Tuesday, Feb. 2 "Ground Hog Day"
In class last night, we learned some basic string figures. The story of Cat's Cradles which goes along with the string game plus a couple of string "catches."

We also listened to most (not all) of the storytelling recording "Groundhogology" by Doug Elliot. For more on Doug, go to his website: www.dougelliott.com. To find a recording of Groundhogology and other recordings and books by Doug go to: http://www.dougelliott.com/products.html

As we go on into fairy tales, consider the following:

1. Pattern recognition. We use stories to think with and to create understanding by recognizing relationships among the stories we know and the experiences we face. The more stories you know, the more patterns in stories you will begin to recognize.

2. Patterns from the environment. In our consideration of the origins of narrative and the influences on our earliest ancestors, we discussed the notion that the contact with, experience of, and attention to the natural surroundings greatly influenced narrative thinking. In the processes of the environment we find the basic shapes of stories: caterpillar metamorphosis, seasonal cycles, and so on.

3. Patterns from the self. As we explore fairy tales, takes this consideration of the patterns in nature and extend it to include the patterns within - patterns from your own outer and inner life.

4. Spelling. Magic requires spelling. To release a "spell" you must put the right elements into the right relationship. This is what we do with letters. An example from class was to rearrange the 3 letters, T, R, A. From them we get: "Tar" "Rat" "Art" three radically different ideas ("spells") are created by the arrangement of the same elements. Storytelling requires an ability to "spell" with the patterns (motifs, tropes) that make up our stories.

String Figures

Here are some links for tonight's class:

International String Figure Association

Some Youtube clips:
Navajo String Figures:


String Figure Story:


String Figure Jack:

Day 3

We began with a "storytellers' fire." This is an activity I often use as a way to create a mood and mentality for listening to stories. Here it is on bliptv:

I told the story of Raven Brings Light. You can find another version of the story in Coles, "The Raven Brings Light", page 719. Adding to the metaphor of Sky Woman's Basket, we now have the image of Raven's boxes containing light. Combining them as a metaphor for the storyteller, we have the challenge of seeing into the mysterious "basket" of the story and releasing whatever "light" we find there.

I made a connection between the Tlingit region of Raven and the Hawaiian region of Maui by noting that I learned in Hawaii that ocean canoes were made from trees that washed ashore from the NW coast of N. America. Tim asked if that was true, so I checked a map of Pacific Ocean currents. As you can see below, the currents move clockwise from north to south. Hawaii is north of the equatorial current and in a good position to get flotsam from British Columbia!

(As a side note: in recent years the idea that North America was first inhabited by nomadic hunter-gatherers crossing a land bridge across the Bering Straits has been hotly debated. If Polynesians could have made there way to Hawaii from Asia, why couldn't they have gone all the way to North, Central, or South America? Dates for the earliest human presence in South America keep getting pushed back making it harder to conceive of land migration from Alaska. See "Red Earth, White Lies" by Vine Deloria, Jr. for an interesting arguement against the land bridge theory.)

We discussed the story of "How Maui Fished Up The Great Island" (Coles, pg. 599) and found many interesting symbolic possibilities. Here are a few:
* The ancestress half-living and half-dead suggests a relationship with the past
* That he fashions a hook from the jaw-bone of his ancestress suggests the power of the past combined with the power of speech. Note that he chants as he fishes in order to bring up land.
* The paradox of being treated as "lazy" and "shiftless" yet at the same time being inventive suggests that creative personality type: does not fit convention, generates new possibilities, yet may have a day-dreaming style.

There was much more. Please add in your thoughts with comments. Here is a link to more variations of The Legends of Maui.

Some principles we noted:
*To understand a story, we compare it with other stories we already know. Example: Diana discussed the way that Maui and his brothers compare with Mary and Martha from the bible.
* The principle of silence: what is already understood, goes without saying. Hence we will find that stories leave out details that the original listeners may have supplied. Thus, Maui's journey to his ancestress seems very expedient. Yet the journey may have involved much more in the way of ritual and custom that is not reported because it "goes without saying" for members of the original culture.

We watched the youtube performance of a hula chant depicting Maui's Creation. On February 16 we will be joined by a hula instructor and get a first hand experience of this traditional form.
We discussed the use of "containers" for narrative such as highly codified dance forms in Hawaiian hula or totem carvings in the Pacific Northwest.

We watched most of the movie "Remembering The End of The World" depicting the efforts of astronomer, David Talbott, to find a coherent pattern in world mythology and determine what celestial events they may depict. Talbott was inspired by the work of Immanuel Velikovsky and determined that "Velikovsky's key" was pattern recognition. Such pattern recognition is useful for our work in storytelling. Talbott concludes from his research that the ancient astronomers observed a radical realignment of the solar system. For more on his theories go to www.kronia.com.