On Tuesday, February 9, I drove to the Indy Fringe Theatre Building in downtown Indianapolis for the second monthly “Jabberwocky” event of 2010. The first one had been a lot of fun, so I looked forward to the second one as well.  The “Jabberwocky” series of “rendezvous of Jabbers who share their life stories” is produced by Storytelling Arts of Indiana and the Indy Fringe Festival, and supported by IndyGo (Indy’s bus system.)  It is held on the second Tuesday of every month.

The theme for the February evening of stories was “Once Upon a Time.”  Philanthropist and arts supporter Frank Basile was the MC.  The featured tellers were Phoenix Theatre actress Gayle Steigerwald, Theatre on the Square director/actor Ron Spencer, and school media specialist/storyteller Celestine Bloomfield.

I enjoyed listening to all of them!

This was Gayle Steigerwald’s first foray into spoken word storytelling as opposed to acting.  Even though she confessed to being very nervous about performing without a script or other actors to play off of, she was a natural at storytelling!  She shared stories from her life as a professional actor over the years and made us all laugh again and again in sympathy.   Oh, my, I am laughing out loud again, remembering some of her tales of missed cues and mishaps back stage.

I think this was sort of a new experience for Ron Spencer, too, although maybe he has had more experience standing up in front of audiences as himself because he has to give so many curtain talks before shows.  I also assume he has to give presentations to his theatre board.  In any case, he, too, shared interesting stories from his theatre life, some of which were quite poignant.  For example, I was surprised to hear that he had followed his heart to Korea at one point, and directed one of his first shows there.

Both Gayle and Ron mentioned how grateful they were to the Indianapolis Civic Theatre (aka “Civic”) for introducing them to the theatre arts when they were quite young and for giving them their first encouragement as actors.  I hadn’t known this about either of them, either.

Celestine Bloomfield has been sharing stories with all ages of audiences all around Indiana for several years. I have heard her tell just about everything from ghost stories to historical stories to funny stories for families.   This was an all-adult audience, so she took the opportunity to share an adults-only Anansi story about the time when that trickster Spider Man stuck his penis up through a hole in a big log that lay across the path that women had to walk to fetch water from the river.  His purpose was to convince women that they should give men (who all lived in a separate village at that time) a chance.  As each woman stepped over the log, straddling it, she felt something…good, and lingered there for a while, rocking enthusiastically until she…was finished.

As I say, I have heard Celestine tell many different stories many, many times before, but that was a new story for me.  I am laughing and saying, “Oh, my goodness!” again, now, remembering it.  She told it well.

Later, just before the open microphone portion of the evening, Celestine pulled volunteers from the audience to come up and read aloud the steamy parts from her collection of romance novels.  Each of the volunteers gave it their best, and I admire Celestine for wanting to involve lots of people, but the energy of this activity felt odd and forced.  It also went on too long.  I think it might have squelched some shy people rather than encouraging them. 

At any rate only a couple of people volunteered to share stories when Frank said the microphone was open.  One was a joke story told by a man about how (supposedly) women urinate differently at different stages of our lives.  He told well, too, demonstrating the punch line with mouthfuls of water.

But oh, my, it was an odd, odd ending to the evening.

But you know what?  Unpredictability is one of the aspects of a live story swap that I love most.

Also, this was a particularly blizzard-y Tuesday evening, so no one wanted to linger a long time anyway, even though the building was warm and there were two kinds of yummy, hot, hearty, vegetarian soup to eat.  But I bet that on another, slightly balmier, evening, if we had just waited a little bit, the oddness would have worked itself out, and other kinds of stories would have come up again. 

Anyway, I was glad that I had put on my snow boots, cleared off my car, and driven downtown for this event.

In March…

The next “Jabberwocky” will be Tuesday, March 9, 2010, again at the Indy Fringe Theatre Building, 719 East St. Clair Street, Indianapolis (near the intersection of College Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue.) Doors open at 5:30 p.m.  Program begins at 6:00 p.m.  $10 admission includes hearty soup and bread.  There will also be a cash bar.

The theme this time will be “Off-key Musicians.”  Here is the blurb from the Storytelling Arts of Indiana website:

It’s not so much a night of tone-deaf musicians, or music played in the wrong key.  It’s more about the time when the show did go on, and it really shouldn’t have.  Funny.  Embarrassing.  And sure to hit all the right notes.  Join Jenny DeVoe, Jose Valencia, and Becky Archibald for an evening of off-key stories followed by an open-mike session.  During the open-mike session stories are limited to 3-5 minutes in length. The evening host is Travis DeNicola.

IndyGo Route 5, Route 11, Route 17 and Route 21 serve the Indy Fringe Theatre.

‘See you at the theatres!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

Also follow @IndyTheatre on Twitter.com.

(”Alphabet Soup Love” photo, above, is by” basheertome,” from the Creative Commons section of Flickr.com.)

On Sunday, January 24, 2010, I drove to the Frank and Katrina Basile Theatre in the newly renovated Indiana History Center in downtown Indianapolis to hear the premiere performance of “Root Doctors, Midwives, and Fried-Mice Pie: Medicine in Early Indiana.”  Storyteller Susan Grizzell was commissioned to develop and present this piece by Storytelling Arts of Indiana and the Indiana Historical Society as part of their Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories Series.

Not all public speaking involves storytelling.  This piece as presented was more of a read-from-notes lecture than a storytelling – more about this in a moment – but the information was interesting and Sue delivered it warmly.

She stood behind a podium next to a lace-covered table on which were several onions and an egg and something else that size that I couldn’t identify from where I sat.

She shared a wealth of information from a variety of cited sources about early medical practices throughout the young United States, not just Indiana.  Much of it was ghastly, so the audience shivered in delight and gratitude that we no longer rely on, for example, axes under the bed to “cut the pain” of childbirth, or “cupping” and mustard poultices to raise welts on a patient’s skin to “pull” the illnesses out.  We gasped and cringed at the thought of removing birthmarks by rubbing them with the hand of a corpse, too. 

We laughed out loud at the thought of boiling a piece of pork meat in a patient’s urine three times and then feeding it to a pig or dog (but not your neighbor’s) so that the animal would die instead of the patient.

By the end of the program, though, when Sue was throwing the onions into the audience and prescribing them for various ailments, I felt impressed but…dissatisfied.  I felt impressed by all of the research that had obviously gone into this presentation – and I believed Sue when she said that there were many more treatments and recipes “on the cutting room floor.”  However, I had come to hear stories and at the end of the program I didn’t feel that I had heard any stories, only references to stories, if that makes sense.

Every once in a while it would seem that we were going to settle in to a story – something with people that we could get to know, having problems we could sympathize with, finding solutions that we could rejoice along with, or experiencing tragedies that we could empathize with, or whatever – but no, too quickly we were on to the next bit of information. 

I think, for example, that I would have liked to have been led by the storyteller more deeply into the personalities and actions that were part of the rivalry between the “heroic”-style doctors and the new root doctor, Thomas Chin, in the settlement where after a while everyone was putting up a shingle and calling himself a root doctor, even the man who had been a constable three weeks ago.   There are all kinds of potential humorous, cultural, and otherwise engaging story elements to unpack and flesh out in that one sentence.

And if all that wasn’t already neatly packaged and ready to learn and tell in the primary sources, then I am okay with the storyteller imagining and filling in what was not in the primary sources.  A well-crafted story can usually give the feelings and motivations and truth of a topic more effectively than mere facts.  I also think it is possible to craft a story while still respecting the facts.

I know that Sue knows how to do this because I have heard her do it many times before.  I think she just ran out of preparation time this time.

For another example, I think I would have liked to linger in a story about birthing practices.  Sue went into storytelling mode about this sub-topic at one point, telling about one specific birth and the people who were present at it, and tying it somehow to her own experiences as a mother.  You could tell it was storytelling and not fact-telling then because everyone went deeply still for a moment, listening.  But too quickly, before we had time to feel the relief with the pioneer family or share their grief or even just process however the story ended, we were on to the next piece of information.

There are other “story embryos” among the wealth of information that Sue gathered.  Maybe some of those, if more fully developed into stories, would be even more interesting to an audience of story listeners than the ones that caught my attention.

So…as is, this piece is a very interesting talk on the subject of medicine in early Indiana, but I think it has the potential to be a great example of the art and craft of storytelling.  In fact, Sue herself hinted at the end of the premiere that she hoped to continue to work on shaping the piece into a more narrative form.  I hope she does.  I expect that Sue will get a chance to present this piece a few more times this year around the state as part of the Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories grant.  I hope I get to hear it again as it evolves!

Box Office/Mailbox –

Below are excerpts from the press releases I received about the next two Storytelling Arts events (with a link embedded by me to my thoughts about the first “Jabberwocky” event.)  I am looking forward to both of them.  And how cool is it that the “Jabberwocky” series at the Indy Fringe building is supported by the Indianapolis public transportation system!  I admire whoever thought of that sensible partnership.

Indianapolis – Storytelling Arts of Indiana and Indy Fringe Festival present the second Jabberwocky (a rendezvous of Jabbers who share their life stories) on Tuesday, February 9th at the Indy Fringe Theatre, 719 East St. Clair St, doors open at 5:30 p.m., the program begins at 6 p.m.  Tickets are $10 at the door which includes hearty soup, bread, snacks and a cash bar.

What do actors, librarians and teachers all have in common? Stories that begin with Once Upon a Time. This is a night of lustful humor, Harlequin romances and good stories by Ron Spencer of Theatre on the Square, actor Gayle Steigerwald and storyteller Celestine Bloomfield. After the heavy breathing subsides, audience members get their chance to jump in and share a tale or two. Stories shared during the open-mike portion should be limited to 3 – 5 minutes.

Jabberwocky is supported by IndyGo. IndyGo Route 5, Route 11, Route 17 and Route 21 serve the Indy Fringe Theatre.

Jabberwocky is a monthly event based themes to get every day folks to share their life stories.  Upcoming theses include Off-Key Musicians on March 9th, and Worst Case Scenarios on April 13th. Indy Fringe Festival and Storytelling Arts of Indiana have a history of collaboration. Most recently, Storytelling Arts of Indiana sponsored a stage during the 2009 Indy Fringe Festival which featured several storytellers. To learn more about the 2010 Indy Fringe Festival visit, www.indyfringe.org and upcoming storytelling events visit, www.storytellingarts.org. 
 
 *****

Indianapolis- Talk of the Town: The Tenth Annual Benefit for Storytelling Arts of Indiana is scheduled for Saturday, February 20, 2010 at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center.  The evening hosted by Lou Harry of the Indianapolis Business Journal includes a dinner, silent auction and storytelling performance, Stories for the Journey Home, told by Carmen Agra Deedy who is known for her razor-sharp wit. 

Carmen Agra Deedy is an award-winning storyteller who was born in Havana, Cuba. In 1960, she emigrated from her homeland during the Cuban Revolution, a move that has profoundly affected her life and her work. Her parents, strong proponents of human rights, decided to leave after four tumultuous years in the midst of a revolutionary environment. They took Carmen and her sister and found sanctuary in the United States under the JFK Cuban Refugee Act of 1963. They settled in Decatur, Georgia, where they coped with the separation from loved ones still in Cuba and slowly acclimated to cultural differences. The Agra family ultimately succeeded in starting over and rebuilding their lives.

While Deedy’s storytelling reflects these themes of separation and deprivation, she shapes and crafts her stories with humor. Also essential to Deedy’s experience are her strong sense of perseverance and her dual heritage, drawn from growing up steeped in the riches of both Latin American and Southern culture. 

This event begins in the Startdust Terrace Café and moves upstairs to the Frank and Katrina Basile Theater located in the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio St. Tickets for the entire evening are $80 per person. Tickets for the performance only are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. To order tickets or for more information, call the Indiana History Center at (317) 232-1882 or (800) 447-1830 or purchase tickets on-line, www.storytellingarts.org. Free parking is available at the Indiana History Center in its parking lot at the corner of West and New York streets. 

‘See you at the theatres!

 Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

Follow @IndyTheatre on Twitter.com, too!

P.S. – The headshot I received of Susan Grizzell from Storytelling Arts of Indiana was too big of a jpg file, apparently, for resizing via Flickr.com or Wordpress.  Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work, unfortunately.  ‘Sorry!  But as a sort of substitute, I do like the “Herb Bundles” photo by Carolina Gonzalez, because Sue referred to herbs a lot in her talk.

On Sunday afternoon, October 25, 2009, I drove to the newly-renovated Indiana History Center on the canal in downtown Indianapolis to hear storyteller Patrick Ball and musicians Shira Kammen and Tim Rayborn (a duo known collectively as “The Medieval Beasts”) bring to life a piece called “Telling the Flame of Love: The Legend of Tristan and Iseult.”  It was presented by Storytelling Arts of Indiana and the Indiana Historical Society as part of the Printing Partners Storytelling Theater series.  It was sponsored by Lewis & Kappes, Fred and Midge Munds, Tom and Pat Grabill, and Ryan Zumbahlen.  Cathy Covey was the sign language interpreter.

It is a relatively new piece, I think.  Usually Storytelling Arts director Ellen Munds only brings to Indianapolis storytellers and storytelling shows that she has heard and seen before in other venues around the country.  When I asked her after this show where else she had seen it, she said that she had not, in fact, seen it before.  When Patrick Ball had told her about it, she was intrigued.  She trusted him enough based on past experiences to hire him based just on his description of the piece.

I’m glad she did.

It is as rich in imagery, language, and melody as a tapestry is rich in color and texture.   It is sort of a tragic, Romeo-and-Juliet-type tale of star-crossed lovers, but it is a much longer and more complex story, with many more mistakes and misunderstandings, many more dragons and battles and bits of magic, and a more complete (one might also say more stupid, or more romantic) surrendering to love. It is also related to the animosity between all of Cornwall and Ireland, rather than just the animosity between two families.

Patrick stands and tells the once famous but now lesser-known story of Tristan and Iseult as if he is addressing a roomful of “my lords and ladies” in medieval times.  He tells with his whole body – indeed, with what seems like his whole heart, mind, and soul.  He ends by saying that he hopes our having heard this story will keep us from “the bitterness of love.”

In between sections of the story, Patrick sits at a fairly large Celtic harp and plays.  The sound is ethereal.

Sitting near him are Shira and Tim, surrounded by authentically medieval-style instruments, including two smaller, medieval harps, a psaltery, a hand drum, a lute, and a vielle – a stringed instrument that looks something like a violin.  Shira and Tim introduce us to these instruments before the story begins so that we can give our full attention to the story, not be distracted by wondering what the instruments are called.

Sometimes all three performers play together.  Sometimes Shira or Tim sing and/or play, individually or together.  I couldn’t understand many of the songs because they were in Galician or medieval German or 14^th century English or 13^th century French or one of several other languages that were completely foreign to me, but I loved listening to the gorgeous aural landscape of the songs.  I also loved hearing the emotion and (it seemed to me) precision and expertise that these special musicians brought to their singing and playing.

On Sunday afternoon, all three performers listened carefully to each other and seemed perfectly synchronized.

I couldn’t always understand what Patrick was saying, but that was mostly because some of the place names were unfamiliar and because the sentence patterns and his accent were more British than what I am used to.  He also speaks rather quickly in this piece.  I had to concentrate harder than I sometimes do with other storytellers (or even other times I’ve heard Patrick tell) but the richness of the language and imagery was worth the extra effort.

Because of the intense level of listening required, this is not a piece for young children.

I didn’t look at my program until later, but the cast of characters listed there was interesting and useful.  (“Ah, yes, the evil dwarf, Frocin!  I remember him.”)  If I had looked at it sooner, it might have helped me become familiar with the sound of the characters’ names more quickly as I listened to the story.  I noticed during the second part of the show after intermission that some audience members were now following along in their programs not only the list of characters but also the list of pieces of music, which were grouped according to sections of the story:  “The Childhood of Tristan,” “The Quest of the Lady with the Hair of Gold,” “To Philtre,” etc. 

I think if I had never heard or read any version of the story of Tristan and Iseult before, and if I did not have the details in the program, I would have had a very hard time keeping up with the twists and turns in this epic.  But maybe not.  And anyway, I’m not sure I would have minded.  Epics are supposed to be meaty enough to deserve multiple listenings.  This one certainly does.

I left feeling that I had experienced a unique treat.

Box Office

This was a one-performance only event, but the next event in the Storytelling Arts of Indiana/Indiana Historical Society calendar is…hey!  It is my own presentation of “Of the People: Stories and Images of Abraham Lincoln.”  It will be this Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 7pm in the Richardson Chapel of Franklin College.  It is paid for by a Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories grant, so there is no charge for admission.  Maybe I will see you there?

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

Email: amarylliswriter at gmail dot com

Twitter: @IndyTheatre

The event was co-sponsored by the Indiana Historical Society and Storytelling Arts of Indiana.  There were five professional storytellers, including the mistress of ceremonies, Sue Grizzell.  They live in various parts of Indiana.  All five are recipients of the Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories grant sponsored by the two organizations over the years.  On Saturday night the featured tellers took turns standing or sitting before a microphone on a small raised platform decorated with pumpkins and bales of hay under two poles of bright theatre lights plus the regular lights from the IHC’s patio area.  As a group, the tellers offered a nice sampling of subtly different telling styles and stories from all over the world.

Bob Sander

The first teller was Bob Sander.  He is a co-founder of Storytelling Arts of Indiana and proud of the fact that he has lived here in Indianapolis his whole life, minus a few years in Bloomington to study at Indiana University.  I have often heard him tell the story of the haunted house that he and his college buddies shared there, and at first I thought he was going to tell that story again on Saturday night. However, he only used a small section from that story as part of his introduction to another story.  He had carefully crafted a way to bring us from the immediacy of every-day life to the timelessness of “Story.” 

(He did not tell us that that was what he was doing; that is what it felt like to me.  I appreciated the care he had taken to allow us to fall fully into what some tellers call “the storytelling trance.”) 

He told us about the squirrels that he had heard scrabbling in his attic on Saturday afternoon, and how they reminded him of the rats he used to hear scrabbling right on the other side of his bedroom wall in Bloomington, which reminded him of a certain story that young Charles Dickens’ apparently sadistic nursemaid used to tell him before bed.  It is a creepy-funny story about generations of a family named Chips and their negotiations with the Devil.  Their bargains always involve a certain rat that can speak.

Bob held an accordion in his lap and told us to think of it “as more of an accessory” than a musical instrument.  Its rhythmic musical wheezing did add a delicious layer of aural texture to his telling. 

My friend David laughed out loud at the French accent that Bob gave the Devil in his story.  David told me later that he also loved the sing-song-y bits of rhyme in the story.  For example, there was a catchy refrain that went “Chips, old boy…Chips, ahoy!…I’ll…have…Chips!”

Bob invited engagement from his listeners not only through the use of music and the tension of the story itself but also through the way he sometimes stopped at the end of a sentence to let the audience fill in the last word, as if he himself had forgotten it. It was a very subtle way of checking in with the audience – “Are you still listening?  Are you with me?” – and giving the audience a way to answer “Yes, yes, we are” without leaving the story.

After the Dickens story, Bob told a funny and gruesome little story about what happened to the finger of an audience member who noisily squeezed his empty Coke can during a previous storytelling event.

I enjoyed several aspects of Bob’s time on stage, but I confess that what I appreciated most about it was that he didn’t preface or end his set with jokes at the expense of the women with whom he shared the stage.  That was a refreshing change from every other time I’ve heard him tell or MC in the last fifteen years or so.

Cynthia Changeris

Cynthia Changeris was next.  She now lives in southern Indiana where she runs a bed-and-breakfast on the Ohio River, but originally she is from North Carolina.  Her accent reflects this.  I love to hear the warmth and lilt that are always naturally in her speaking voice.

On Saturday night she began by telling us about a ghost that guests have seen sitting at the kitchen table at her Storyteller’s Riverhouse.  I have been there many times for storytelling retreats!  I have never seen a mysterious woman there with long, black hair…or have I?  At one of the larger retreats before I had met everyone?  Hmm.  Anyway, it was fun to think about the possibility.

Like Bob, Cynthia grounded us in her real, home life before taking us more deeply into Story.  She moved us from her bed-and-breakfast into a story about a store keeper who lived long ago in the days when milk was sold in bottles.  He was surprised by a troubled-looking woman who entered his store and only pointed to what she wanted.  She left without saying a word and without paying for the two bottles of milk.  The storekeeper said, “Hey!” and tried to make conversation with her, tried to tell her that if she needed help, he would do his best, but she didn’t turn back. 

It happened again the next day, so on the third day the storekeeper gathered a friend or two to secretly follow the woman.  They followed her to a place with a fresh grave and watched her disappear into it!  They moved closer and heard a kind of wimpering from deep in the earth.

They got permission to dig up the grave.  When they opened the casket, there was the woman, lying dead but looking much more peaceful than at the store.  In her arms was a living baby, crying.  And surrounding them, in the coffin, were six empty milk bottles.

I had heard Cynthia tell this story before, and I have heard several other people tell it, too, but it still moved me. Sometimes the pleasure of listening to stories comes more from the journey than the destination.

Cynthia also told us a story about a family lost in a small boat at sea whose lives were mysteriously saved when the salt water surrounding them changed to drinkable water.  After they were rescued, someone gave them the scientific explanation of how the miracle had happened.  But no one could explain away the voices the family had heard out in the boat, telling them to “Drink!  Drink!  Drink!”

She closed her set with a story based on an actual event from history.  In 1933, John Harris did ride his wife’s coffin to safety during a hurricane.  Cynthia told us about the love story behind the bizarre event.

I always think of the words like “warm” when I hear Cynthia tell, but the girl sitting next to me said to her friend, “That was a cool story!”  They went over to talk to Cynthia during intermission.

Intermission

Popcorn and candy, coffee and wine, and maybe other refreshments, were for sale on the patio behind the audience.  I think I saw a table of storytelling books and CDs, too, but I stayed away for once.  Dedicated Storytelling Arts volunteer Fran Long had probably coordinated the set-up of the Resources Table, but I don’t know who was actually staffing the tables besides Storytelling Arts of Indiana’s executive director, Ellen Munds.  Storyteller Marcia Baker and Storytelling Arts co-founder Nancy Barton staffed the ticket table at the top of the stairs.

I was delighted to see Don Drennen running the lights and sound for this event.  He was “my” sound-and-light person the last time I told at the Indiana History Center and it was a real treat to work with him.  Also, since my year as an Encore Association judge is over and I have turned in my ballot, I can tell you that I loved the show that Don directed earlier this year at the Wayne Township Civic Theatre.  It was a musical called “Tick…Tick…Boom!”  It is in the running for Best Musical with only one other show: Footlite Musicals’ production of “Miss Saigon,” which I also admired very much but for very different reasons.  If it were up to me, this year’s Best Musical award would be a tie, but I guess we’ll find out when the Encore Awards are finally announced on October 26.  The judges vote independently.  No one but the Encore accountant knows the winner before the Encore Awards ceremony.

Anyway, Don is definitely a creative theatre man and I think he probably couldn’t resist offering a teeny bit of theatrical razzle-dazzle to the oral tradition storytelling event Saturday night.  Or maybe the third storyteller, Lou Ann Homan, who also has a theatre background, asked Don for a special effect and he said, “Piece of cake!”  At any rate, Lou Ann’s two stories had a subtle, eery reverb (I think that’s the word) from the microphone at the end of them.  I have to admit: it was pretty nifty.

Lou Ann Homan

LouAnn Homan lives in a small town in northern Indiana.  Her story crafting always includes rich sensory details, starting with artful visuals.  On Saturday night, she wore a hunter green wool cape that contrasted beautifully with her red curls.  David leaned over to me and said, “She’s wearing socks on her hands!  I want what she’s wearing!”  She was actually wearing striped, fingerless mittens, I think, but I agreed: they looked like just the thing for this particular chilly situation.

Her stories took the mood of the evening into a darker, even more chilling place.  She told us two stories that were based on factual events: one about some body harvesters in 1800s Edinburgh, Scotland who went too far, and one about a certain mysterious painting that now hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.  I could smell the cigarette smoke in the second story as she talked about it.

I think the quiet vividness of LouAnn’s telling made all of us in the audience even more sensitive to the sounds going on around us just outside our story sharing space in that contained-but-open, urban setting.  Most of them – like the sirens, the planes overhead, and the flute carillon from the Eiteljorg Museum just down the road – we willingly tuned out.  And the occasional gurgle from the water in the Canal behind us was soothing.  But you know how you jump a mile when you’re listening to ghost stories around a campfire out in the woods and suddenly an owl hoots?  Well, at one particularly intense moment in one of LouAnn’s stories, one of the horses pulling a tourist carriage out on the street suddenly snuffled loudly.  I heard the person behind me jump a mile and say to her neighbor, “What was THAT?!!”

I laughed along with her because I had jumped, too!

Celestine Bloomfield

The final storyteller of the evening was Celestine Bloomfield.  She lives here in Indianapolis but is originally from “da region” up north around Gary, Indiana.

Celestine always says that she never knows ahead of time which story she will tell.  I don’t know her process exactly, but I imagine she tries to go on stage with a trusting heart, mind, and spirit.  And then, while a part of her is saying hello to everyone, another part is sort of waiting and listening and looking until she knows which story wants to be told in that particular time and place.   Sometimes her “hello” takes a while.  Other times, she is able to jump right in and hit the ground running.

Saturday night was one of those times.  I was almost too cold by then to listen well, but it seemed to me that Celestine was “in the zone.”  She told us that yes, she was from Gary, but “my people are from North Carolina,” same as Cynthia’s, and something in one of Cynthia’s stories had reminded her of another story, about how a place called “The Devil’s Rock” got its name.

When Celestine finished telling that story and we had applauded, she laughed and said, “But that’s not the story I wanted to tell you. That was just conversation.”  We laughed, too, and settled in for a truly riveting telling of Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Black Death.”  A voodoo revenge story was a perfect way to end a whole evening of disquieting tales.

Next Year?

This was the first year for this particular storytelling event.  I hope that it is the beginning of a tradition.  Next year, I will bring piles and piles of blankets, and maybe some socks for my hands, no matter what the weather services predict.

In the Meantime

If you would like more information about this year’s tellers, Bob Sander, Celestine Bloomfield, and Cynthia Changeris are all listed in the storyteller directory on the Storytelling Arts of Indiana website.  I’m not sure why Lou Ann Homan is not listed there this year, except that I know the tellers pay to be in it, so maybe she is just trimming expenses.  She does have her own website: www.louannhoman.com.

The next Storytelling Arts of Indiana event will be “The Flame of Love: The Legend of Tristan and Iseult featuring Patrick Ball and the Medieval Beasts” on Sunday, October 25, 2009 from 4:00-6:00pm at the Indiana History Center.

I do not know The Medieval Beast musicians (Shirra Kamen and Tim Rayborn) but I have swooned over Patrick Ball many times before.  He often incorporates a Celtic harp into his storytelling.  He lives in California (last I heard) but his roots are Irish.

For more information and/or to buy a ticket, please visit www.storytellingarts.org or call the Storytelling Arts of Indiana office at 317-576-9848.

Here is a direct link to more information about “The Flame of Love” program.

Maybe I’ll see you there?

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

(P.S. – I’ll figure out a photo to head this post later, if I have time.)

Storytelling Arts of Indiana’s 1st annual (I hope!) Liars Contest at the Indiana State Fair was a huge success!  Six adults and three youths from various places around Indiana each shared some sort of tall tale to an audience of between 80-100 people from the stage of the Opera House building in the Fair’s Pioneer Village.

There were three professional storytellers serving as judges: Celestine Bloomfield, Sue Grizzell, and myself.  Storytelling Arts director Ellen Munds added up our three sets of scores at the end, so I can’t speak for the other judges’ scores, but mine were very close.  I enjoyed all of the tellers, but I scored the top three adult winners about the same but for different reasons.

The official blue ribbon for first place went to Gus Pearcy from Danville, Indiana, pictured* above.  Some Indy Theatre Habit readers will know Gus as a producer of theatre shows for the Wayne Township Community Theatre.  They just closed a musical there this weekend called “Tick, Tick…Boom!”  I hadn’t known Gus was going to be at the Liars’ Contest.  I was delighted to see him at the registration table, and even more delighted when he told a very polished piece of hilarity about how the nickname “Hoosier” came about.   Hah!  I am laughing again, remembering it.

   Second place went to John Applebee from Springport, Indiana, pictured* at left.  I loved his confident timing and his comfortable, down-home storytelling style.  I also admired the way he built his story about his neighbor’s mule so as to take us by complete surprise with the punch line.  Hah!  I am laughing again, remembering it.  I did not see that ending coming AT ALL.

  Third place went to Ernie Taylor from Zionsville, Indiana, pictured* at left, talking to two of his fans.  He, too, had a very natural, relaxed-and-relaxing storytelling style and an easy rapport with the audience.  The words “gentleman” and “beloved” come to mind, now, when I think of his time sharing stories with us today.  I just felt good being in his audience.  I also admired the way he had carefully arranged his many short “lies” about his hometown and his travels into one longer (but still within the strict 5-minute time limit) piece.  It gave us a strong and lovely sense of place as well as a lot of laughs.  I am relaxing and smiling again, remembering it.

Indianapolis resident Marcia Baker’s adaptation of a Japanese tall tale to a Beanblossom, Indiana setting was a lot of fun.  Dick Reel (I’m sorry: I am not sure of the spelling of his name!) from LaPorte, told some good “lies,” too.  I carefully wrote down the last contestant’s name…but on my score sheet instead of in my notebook!  I’m sorry that I can only tell you that his nickname is “Hank.”  He told a serious and heartfelt autobiographical story about re-connecting with the man who introduced his father to God.  I don’t think he understood the nature of this particular storytelling contest, but I admired his sincerity.

The three youth tellers were Mary Sander, age 12, and Zoe and Maxwell Richardson, a brother and sister aged 10 and 12 respectively.  Mary won first place for her funny-punny story about A Fish Named Noah.  Maxwell told about a substitute teacher who was also an alien.  Zoe told about her adventures with her talking cat.  Mary lost a point or two because she went over the time limit, but she still won first prize.   I think Zoe took second and Maxwell third, but again, the scores were very close.

In case you’re thinking of entering a storytelling contest some time, below is what we judges were told to look and listen for.  We put a check in one of five columns for each category:  1=lowest, 5=highest.  Then we added them up to make a final score for each teller.   We each sat in a different part of the audience, and we each filled out our score sheets on our own.  There was really no time or place for discussion, anyway, because when the contest was over, the audience stayed put to hear who won right away.

• Technique – delivery, confidence, general stagecraft.
• Story Development – development of the story in time available.
• Originality – new material or fresh handling of a familiar tale.
• Effectiveness – in the judges’ opinion, taking audience response into consideration.

It was a very hot day at the Fair today outside in the sunshine, but a cool breeze blew in through the barn-like doors of the Opera House building.  There was a good sound system for the tellers to use, and very little noise from other events around the Fair.  There were a few people in the audience that I knew were already Storytelling Arts fans because I had interacted with them at other events.  However, many more raised their hands when the MC asked who was at a Storytelling Arts of Indiana event for the first time.  I hope that Storytelling Arts of Indiana and the Indiana State Fair collaborate to offer this event every year from now on.  I hope that all of this year’s contestants return to tell again, too! 

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.com.

P.S. -  One of today’s judges, storyteller Celestine Bloomfield, will be sharing some of her favorite stories at the same place – the Opera House building in the Pioneer Village area of the Indiana State Fair – this Thursday night from 7:00-7:30 pm.  The event is free with Fair admission.  I have already committed to being at the Indy Fringe Preview Night on Thursday night, but if I could be in two places at once, I would love to hear Celestine tell again.  Her telling style is exuberant!  H.B.

*I bought an iPhone this past Friday – my first cell phone of any kind, ever (eep!) - in order to be able to easily add a few unique visuals to my blog.  Today was only my first attempt at taking photographs ”at the scene,” so please excuse the fuzziness.   I also thought I had taken a face-front headshot of Ernie Taylor but it sure wasn’t in my phone when I got home!   Hmm.  Anyway, my next iPhone/blog project will, I hope, be a series of “Indy Fringe Moment” videos.   Wish me luck!

On Saturday night, April 4, 2009, I drove downtown to the Indiana State Museum to hear visiting storyteller Megan Wells share the epic story of “Helen’s Troy.”  This event was part of the Barnes & Thornburg Storytellers Theater series.  It was presented by Creative Street Media Group and sponsored by Lewis & Kappes through Storytelling Arts of Indiana.

I am very grateful to all of the organizations and individuals who made this event possible because it was uniquely powerful, uniquely moving.  I had to pull my car over on the way home because I had some delayed-reaction weeping in addition to the tears that I had shed during the telling!  I welcomed the catharsis.

I had heard this piece once before, at the Going Deep Long Traditional Stories Retreat in Bethlehem, Indiana in 2008.  It was even better the second time.

When I said this to Megan afterwards, she said, “I’ve grown up, too, as I tell it.  Thank goodness it’s storytelling.  If it were theatre, I’d be stuck” (in the younger version of her telling it.)

Earlier that day I had taken a workshop with Megan and around twenty other people at the Indy Fringe building.  Megan introduced herself by saying that she had started out in theatre, completing a master’s degree and winning a “Jeff Award” for directing in Chicago.   In other words, she had experienced a lot of success by doing theatre.

However, after several years she began to feel that something was wrong in her theatre work.  She realized later that the problem was that she couldn’t touch the audience.  “I knew art – plays, poetry, and so on – but I didn’t know these people.”  At the time, though, she just knew she needed a change.  She went into corporate communications work then, and did that for ten years.

In the corporate world, she started telling little stories to help people understand each other better.  Someone from the oral tradition storytelling community saw her and said, “That’s storytelling.  What you’re doing is the art form known as storytelling.”

She told us that she said, “Huh?  Storytelling?  What’s that?” and added to us that “That is still what we’re living in.  People don’t get it.”  People don’t get what oral tradition storytellers do unless they have experienced it for themselves.

In fact, Megan still didn’t really get it herself until she visited the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee and had a “spine-cracking alignment.” She began to realize that storytelling – what I call “oral tradition storytelling” or in other words live, face-to-face, in-the-moment, well-crafted-but-non-memorized, spoken storytelling –  is “a perfect, perfect meeting of the highest of our images and the deepest of our intimacies.”

Megan has now been working as a professional storyteller for eight years.  She told us that she recently had another big shift or crisis of confidence or whatever you want to call it.  Suddenly she felt that in all of those eight years as a storyteller, “I’ve just been rehearsing in public!”

But then she realized that the nature of storytelling is that you improve all the time.  You never really know you’re a storyteller.  Storytelling guru Jim May sympathized with her when she talked to him about it.  He said, “You don’t really become a storyteller until you die.”

Rather than overwhelm her, this realization freed her.  She shared it with us, I think, so that we, too, could relax and stop having impossible expectations of ourselves, and feel free to learn and play and grow in her workshop and in life.

“It’s okay to lower the bar,” she said.  “We’re all storytellers.”

I appreciated Megan’s humble attitude and her empathetic permission giving, and I did learn a lot(!) from her workshop about ways to keep playing and working creatively with my own stories, but her storytelling concert on Saturday night was nonetheless something very special.  We may all be storytellers, but we do not all tell as effectively as Megan does.  Her background in writing and other forms of communication, her background in theatre, and her commitment to continual freshness, all inform her storytelling in many rich ways.

Her command of language is exquisite, for example.  In her workshop she urged us to not only create images in our listeners’ minds but to deepen their connections to the story by moving past “like” phrases to metaphors.  A “like” phrase is better than offering a listener no image at all, but it still makes a pause in the rhythm of the story.  It creates a little distance in the listener’s mind because he (or she) has to stop and remember what the thing is, and then figure out how the thing in the story is like that thing.

It’s the difference between saying “Cinderella was clever as a fox” and “Cinderella twitched and knew instinctively the smell of her stepmother.”

Megan told us that being able to do this without resorting to memorization is a skill that develops over time.  ”Keep working your language,” she said.  “After a while, your mouth is doing the work for you.  The turns of phrase are right there.”

Her ability to gracefully incorporate a lovely costume – a flowing peach and cream tunic belted with purple and worn over cream leggings and bare feet – and a few simple set pieces provided by the host venue - a folding screen, a bench, a couple of stools – and to use the whole stage as her telling space in a very natural way are examples of how her theatre training informs her telling.  I imagine she made very deliberate decisions about how to “block” this piece, yet it is also flexible and portable enough to be shared just about anywhere – an outdoor stage, a classroom, a museum auditorium – with very little extra preparation.

Megan is always herself on stage, but she is also dozens of other characters.  Of course she is the complex title character, Helen.  Helen who was raped by Theseus and later blamed for so much tragedy because her face was beautiful enough to “launch a thousand ships,” but who also knew love and passion and motherhood.  The beautiful, half-immortal Helen, daughter of Leda and the god Zeus, who seduced Leda as a swan.  Helen, who loved two men equally: Menelaus and Paris.  Helen who finally came to know that she was more than her beautiful face.

Megan is also Helen’s well-meaning but deceitful mother, Leda, and Paris’ mother, Hecuba, and several other women, including the goddess Aphrodite.

She is also Menelaus, Helen’s clueless but good-hearted husband, and Agamemnon, his war-hungry brother. She is also Helen’s loving brothers, Castor and Polydeuces, and irresistable Paris, the Prince of Troy, and Odysseus and Apollo and Prometheus and more.

All of these people with the hard-to-spell names from ancient times become real people, with names that are pronounceable and motivations that are understandable (if not always admirable) through Megan’s telling of all of their stories within the epic story of “Helen’s Troy.”

It is comforting to know that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that both male and female energies are important.  But it is healing to see that something as horrible as a rape or an abandonment or a mistake or even a slaughter is not the end of the story, even though it feels that way at the time.

“Helen’s Troy” is in two parts, divided by an intermission.  At the end of the evening on Saturday, when everyone in the audience was on their feet applauding, Megan bowed, held out her arms, and said, “You did that!  You made the pictures in your head!”

Which is true.  But still…it was Megan who had pulled the ancient story fragments together for us and showed us the way home with them as Helen finally found her way home from Troy with Menelaus to the Elysian Fields.

 ”Thanks, again,” Megan said, as we continued to clap.  “And…and…may you find love at home, too!”

Yes, indeed.

********** 

Megan Wells’ telling of “Helen’s Troy” here in Indianapolis was a one-night only event.  However, the final event in the Barnes and Thornburg Storytellers Theater series is still to come on Saturday night, April 25, 2009. 

The guest that night will be storyteller/folk musician John McCutcheon.  He will share a piece for adults and teens called “Politics, Love and Other Small Miracles.”  It will be presented by Storytelling Arts of Indiana in collaboration with St. Luke’s Methodist Church.  The performance will occur at 7:30 pm at St. Luke’s, 100 West 86^th Street.  Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door.  To order tickets or for more information, please call (317)232-1637 or visit www.storytellingarts.org/store/category/Tickets.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

This is the fourth of four posts in a series about the third annual “Going Deep: Long Traditional Stories Retreat” held in Bethlehem, Indiana, on March 19-22, 2009.

The Storytelling

On Saturday night, the last night, I and the other retreat participants walked over to the Schoolhouse from the Storyteller’s Riverhouse to hear a version of “Gilgamesh” written and performed by David Novak and presented by A Telling Experience.  Priscilla Howe introduced the show.  Steve Boyar was the stage manager. 

Yes, stage manager.  David comes to oral tradition storytelling from theatre and, I learned later, from busking (street performance art that in David’s case includes clowning and mime.)  His “Gilgamesh” piece incorporates the best from all of his backgrounds – the intimacy of storytelling, the interpretive skills of acting, the physicality of busking, and the design elements of theatre – to let his audience see that this 5000-year-old story is still a good one, and still relevant.

Steve is a storyteller, too – in fact, he and David met through one of David’s storytelling classes – but in this production he is content to stay completely behind the scenes.  He told me later that the story is a little different every time.  As the stage manager, he doesn’t follow written cues.  He said, very modestly, “I just know the story.” 

I imagine that being the stage manager of this storytelling show is a very organic and intuitive activity.  Even though David and Steve have done a lot of work ahead of time and deeply considered each aspect of the show, the two men also co-create each performance as it goes along.

When the audience arrived Saturday night, the chairs had all been turned to face the small, raised platform at the end of the schoolhouse’s meeting room.  The space had been outfitted with several theatre lights and extra sound equipment.   Seven bamboo poles were stuck in weighted burlap sacks so that they stood upright.  There was a pattern of smaller poles almost in a star shape – or maybe it was an arrow? – on the back wall, between two free-standing bamboo screens.  Draped on the floor in front of the platform were two long pieces of brown plastic, with shards of clay and two or three loose bamboo poles strewn across them.

You can see a picture of a portion of the “set” with the house lights up in Priscilla Howe’s account of the “Going Deep” retreat on her blog.

I was delighted to learn later that every time David and Steve present this piece, they cut new bamboo canes from near their homes in Ashville, North Carolina.  In my mind, this honors both the transience of oral traditional storytelling and the stagey quality of live theatre.

The “Gilgamesh” storytelling piece incorporated portable theatre lights, too, and several pieces of recorded music. 

David wore black trousers and a subtly-striped, black and grey, short-sleeved shirt.  He looked as if he had respected his audience enough to dress up, but his clothes also allowed him to move very freely, even incorporating joyful and impressive acrobatics from time to time.

The story was completely new to me.  It went something like this:

Gilgamesh is the proud ruler of a magnificent city called Uruk.  He is two parts female (from his mother, who was a goddess) and one part male (from his father, a human man.)  He is raised mostly by his mother, but then a goddess makes and civilizes a friend for him, a man called Enkidu.  Gilgamesh and Enkidu at first want to fight each other, but then they become best friends and witnesses for each other. They share many adventures, each of which has meaning.  When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh seeks immortality to ease his pain.  After more adventures, more learning, and more pain, he finally finds peace instead.  “Love the person you’re with, and eat the bread while it’s still warm.”

Oh, I am not doing justice to the nuances of the plot or the characters at all, but it is a powerful, powerful story, especially as David and Steve present it.

Later, when I learned the word “bromance” (buddy story about straight men) from a TV-watching colleague at my day job, I immediately thought of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. 

And David and Steve, for that matter.

I wish I had thought to ask them what their wives think of this show.

This version of “Gilgamesh” is much more than a re-telling of the first recorded bromance, however. 

My experience of the piece was as layered as the piece itself.  I laughed a lot – sometimes in recognition, other times in surprise.  At times my face was wet with tears.  Other times I was almost unbearably turned on.  And still other times I felt just plain pleased to be taken not only to ancient Sumeria but also to the nineteenth century and George Smith’s re-discovery of the ancient cuneiform tablets, and, through brief references to pop culture, to various decades of the last century.  David (and Steve) made the whole, complex piece very easy to follow.

There were two parts divided by a ten-minute intermission.  At the end, David passed around a loaf of bread that Steve had baked during the show.  We all pulled off pieces to chew.  It was delicious!

The Workshop

The next morning we all gathered in the living room of the Storyteller’s Riverhouse for David’s workshop.

He said he didn’t have any of the handouts or other things that we had enjoyed in the first two workshops of the retreat, but “I will give you myself as much as I can.” 

This is no small gift.  David’s mind is as well-stocked as the great library of Alexandria.  He also has a knack for exegesis, for exploring and explaining something point by point, word by word, or in this case, artistic choice by artistic choice. 

His “Going Deep” workshop was therefore more of a companionable, conversational lecture than an invitation to self-reflection or a hands-on introduction to ritual, but it was textured and fascinating, rich with both personal insights and scholarship.  Even though it was very different from either Liz Warren’s workshop or Marilyn Omifunke Torres’ workshop, I found it equally satisfying.

David had brought an iPod in a small case that converted into a nifty little stereo system. He played the pre-show music as we all were getting settled with our notebooks and coffee cups.  He had also brought a small crate of books.  He spread them out in a loose pile at his feet, ready to hold up as he mentioned them in his talk.

He began by saying that he planned to go through the show again, sharing information about the artistic choices he had made.  However, first he wanted to give everyone a chance to integrate the stories from the previous two nights as well as the one he had told.  He asked everyone to help him create a conversation of images and moments from all three pieces, “Like an overture in musical theatre weaves together the themes of an entire piece.”

He said, “Present whatever image occurs to you as you’re remembering the stories.  Listen to the images that others present and relate your images to those.  But just speak the images, don’t talk about them.  We’re not having a discussion yet, just weaving connections.  It’s okay to have some silence in the conversation, too.”

Someone said, “The red horse in the Grail story…” and we were off.   Afterwards, I did feel more deeply connected to all three of the stories.

David said that he does this exercise with his storytelling students before they tell.  They share images from their own stories, listening for possible connections and resonances.  Then when the students listen to each other’s full stories, they listen in a more coherent, woven manner.

It also helps them begin to move into teller mode.  “Beginning storytellers are often caught in a fixed text,” David said.  “This exercise challenges the grip of the literary mind…The challenge is to move freely within the story…The mind of a storyteller is different from a writer or a reciter.”

I want to try this exercise with my own storytelling students.

For the rest of the morning, David took us back through the “Gilgamesh” story.  He played bits of music from the show – some of which he had created himself using “Garage Band” – and explained each bit’s purpose, such as foreshadowing, or focusing, or filling in emotional gaps, or mirroring the fusion of elements in the story, etc.

He referred to other stories and to other artists’ performances.  He referred to ideas, quotes, books, poems, songs, and theories. He referred to issues and information from his personal life and his own journey as a storyteller.  He brought forth from his own mind and heart all kinds of items to deepen our connection to the Gilgamesh story through his explanation of his own creative decision-making for this piece.

I scribbled notes as fast as I could, only speaking up to ask how to spell things like “trochaic tetrameter.”  I took way too many notes to share all of them here.  I’ll just share a few of the many, many items that intrigued me in David’s talk:

• On the importance of having and being witnesses: “How can we know another until we know ourselves? And yet how can we know ourselves until we know another?”
• On the challenge of providing an epic experience in a modern setting: “We are not a tribal, traditional community. We don’t have a common principle of silence, where you don’t speak what everyone knows already (so our art has to fill in some of the gaps for our listeners)….There’s more to it than just the story. There’s the experience. How to make it immersive?”
• On honoring the original source: “If you just read aloud a translation of the cuneiform writing, you might think you were honoring the original story, but it would actually be like just reading aloud a libretto from a musical comedy or just reading aloud Shakespeare. You would not be honoring it… (And anyway) there is no such thing as a definitive text. The first written story of Gilgamesh was still recorded a millennia after the story was first told.”
• On being fearless as an artist: “Some artists think that being fearless is about coarseness and crudity. It’s not. Being fearless is not the same as being disrespectful. Anyone can be insulting. The challenge of the modern artist is to try and mean something. The truly dangerous thing is to be sophisticated and nuanced. Real nakedness is enigmatic.”
• On building a long piece that keeps the listeners engaged: “Bertoldt Brecht said, ‘As soon as your listener knows what you’re going to say, they stop listening.’ So  you have to break the expectations.”
• Gilgamesh felt abandoned by the goddess, but at the end he realized that he had never left her hand.

I hope I get to hear David Novak’s telling of “Gilgamesh” again some time.

By the way, David sent me some production photos, too, but I loved the sexy ambiguity of the show poster, so that is what I used here on my blog.  You can see photos of David and learn more about his work on his website, www.novateller.com.  More reviews and information about his “Gilgamesh” piece in particular are here.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

This is the third of four posts in a series about the third annual “Going Deep: Long Traditional Stories Retreat” held in Bethlehem, Indiana, on March 19-22, 2009.

The Storytelling

On Friday evening, the other retreat participants and I walked over from the Storyteller’s Riverhouse to the Schoolhouse to hear Marilyn Omifunke Torres share “The Paths of Osun: The West African Yoruba Epic Journey of the Goddess in Heaven and on Earth.”  Barges drifted by on the Ohio River as we walked along the road next to it.

This time the back of the small stage area inside the Schoolhouse was draped in orange and gold, the swaths of cloth held in place by gourds and glittering eucalyptus sprigs.  There was an African drum nearby.  The table was covered with all kinds of interesting items that I learned later were either symbols of the West African goddess Osun (pronounced Oh-SHOON) and/or which paid homage to her.  There were eggs and oranges and honey and other items that I couldn’t identify.

Liz Warren welcomed us and introduced that night’s teller.  Marilyn Omifunke Torres is based in Phoenix, Arizona but is of a richly mixed heritage.  Her extensive training includes western college degrees and certifications in anthropology, business, and education but also various forms of shamanic training and initiations as a traditional storyteller.  She received two Chieftaincies from the Village of Imota in Nigeria.  Her day job is teaching middle school social studies.

On Friday night she wore a pale yellow, gauzy skirt and a tight, white blouse that drew attention to her breasts.  I learned later that this was to honor the voluptuousness and beauty of the goddess Osun.

Marilyn wore her hair rolled into a bun on top of her head and covered with a subtly sparkling, bright yellow scarf.  A tiny, red-orange feather was tucked into a fold of the scarf.  Gorgeous amber jewelry dripped from her earlobes and was piled around her neck.

Before she began telling her story, Marilyn drew our attention to the list of character names and other terms printed in our paper programs.   She pronounced each of them and talked briefly about them so that they would be more familiar to us when we heard them in the story.  The program also listed the titles of the five stories within the main story, the five concepts that they explored, and the five corresponding Yoruba laws that they evoked. 

I referred to my program often during the evening.  It did make it easier for me to follow a complex story that was completely new to me.

However, even though the story was complex, Marilyn’s telling of it was seamless.  Each of the five parts flowed into the next as smoothly as…well, as smoothly as water flowing down the tributaries of a river.

She told in English but she delineated the story segments, and segments within those segments, by chanting in the Yoruba language.  Her speaking voice was high-pitched and sort of whispery, especially at first, but later it became more forceful when the characters in the story demanded it.  Her Yoruba chanting voice was immediately full and rich, making me think of the thousands of years of power and experience behind it.

She told with her whole body in a dance-like way, and used the whole performance space – sometimes standing, sometimes sitting on a chair, sometimes shimmying her shoulders and flicking her skirt.  From my safe seat in the third row I smiled and imagined what this storytelling program was like for the men in the front row: Marilyn was not shy about leaning in to their personal spaces.  I admired how completely confident she seemed in her curvaceous body, how completely unashamed of, and unafraid of,  its womanliness.

It was also very cool to hear river goddess stories so near an actual river.  Marilyn told us later that Osun priestesses see and honor Osun’s presence in any river, whether it is in West Africa or not.

I am sure that I missed many of the details of the story, even though I enjoyed it very much.  I don’t think it is meant to be a story that anyone can fully absorb in just one hearing of it, anyway, and I am very sure that it is meant to only be shared orally, not written down in detail or trapped one-dimensionally on a page.  I will therefore just share an image or two that I received from each of the five segments.

In the first segment – “When Osun First Comes to the Earth as Ibuakuaro” – we accompanied the goddess into a trap and found ourselves at the bottom of a tight column, deep inside the earth.  It was a claustrophobic feeling, but also an informative one.  The concept for that segment was “Containing.”  Within that confined underground space, and with the help of just a touch of sunlight, the goddess’ tears turned into strands of gold that she could braid into a ladder to help her escape.

In the second segment – “Osun Brings the Light of Divining to the World” – each element of nature received a mystery (a gift or skill) and was now able to contribute something to the world.  The concept for that segment was “Sensualizing.”

In the third segment – “Osun Brings Beauty to the World” – the goddess became pregnant, and we learned that the river binds all things in love.  The concept for that segment was “Birthing.”

In the fourth segment – “Osun Teaches Oba to Listen” – Osun’s sister, Oya, the Goddess of Tornados and Winds, decided to teach Oba, the Wife of Songo and symbol of Sovereignty, a lesson because she was acting as if she had sovereignty over Oya and Osun.  Oya tricked Oba into making a soup for her husband that included her own ear as an ingredient.  Yikes!  But Songo apparently liked it, because when Oya put her ear to the door of their room, she heard Oba and Songo relishing the soup…and each other.  So Oya learned something, too: Don’t put your ear to the door!

The concept for that segment was “Teaching.” 

(Update 3-27-09:  This morning, Marilyn very generously gave me some more information about who did what in this segment.  She also gave me permission to share it with you:

Oya complains to Osun
Osun agrees to mediate the teaching of sovereignty
Osun gives Oba the ingredient of putting her ear in the soup.
Oba puts her ear to the door listening to the King Songo and Osun in the bedroom chamber as he was celebrating her culinary skills (smile)
Oba cuts off her ear puts it in a soup offered to Songo
he of course is disgusted and rages at her….etc. etc.

I am very glad to have this clarification.  Thank you very much, Marilyn!)

Vultures and their gifts played an important role in this segment, too.  Its concept was “Transforming.”

These are just glimpses into the complex story of the journey of Osun, Goddess of the Rivers, into the human realm.

Marilyn ended by giving us a Yoruba song, different from the chants in the story.

I took the long way back to the Storyteller’s Riverhouse, savoring the golden, exotic (to me) images of the story for a while by myself under the stars before joining the other retreat participants for cake and conversation.

The Workshop

The next morning we all gathered again at the Storyteller’s Riverhouse for Marilyn’s workshop.  She had used cloths and other items to set up a small, gold-and-orange altar to Osun in front of the window overlooking the river in the living room.  I claimed a chair early and watched as she poured honey over five eggs on a plate, and peeled an orange and separated its sections into five pieces on another plate, quietly speaking words I couldn’t understand.

As other retreat participants entered, Marilyn invited each of us to take a glassine envelope in which were a yellow-and orange spiral notebook, five strands of golden thread tied together at one end with a small, dark-orange feather, and Marilyn’s business card.  She also gave us each a handout that had a bilingual praise prayer and the morning’s agenda on it, carefully timed.  She invited each of us to select a colored gel pen from her jar.  “I thought you might like to write using Osun’s colors,” she said.

I selected a dark green one.

When everyone was settled, Marilyn said, “Alafia!”  It means “Peace, welcome, blessings.”  She explained in detail in English what she was going to do, and then invoked Osun in the Yoruba language, vigorously tapping a sort of rattle against her palm as she did so.  At the end she said, “Ase!”  (pronounced “ah-SHAY!”)  It means “May it be so!”

Then she cast an “obi” – “a form of communication with nature” – to Osun using corn meal, because “we recognize that permission must be granted.”  Osun gave permission, but if Marilyn had read “no” in the answer, she would have prayed and meditated and done some other things to find out how to get permission to be allowed to share with us the information and rituals that she wanted to share with us.

Then she told us in detail about her lineage and experience, and how she came to be telling stories about Osun.  She grew up in both the continental United States and Puerto Rico, with “lots to negotiate” between her bloodlines, which were Puerto Rican (a mixture of bloodlines in and of itself, a people that move gracefully between black and white cultures), Spaniard, and African.  I was surprised to learn that some of her ancestors were not Yoruba slaves but Yoruba slave traders.

She told us that she had spent a lot of time in the Motherland (Africa) as well, receiving training and initiations into Yoruba traditional storytelling.

One of the things she learned about was “adimu,” which means “offerings.”   She took some time now to explain the significance of some of the items on the altar. 

“We have an orange to cool us down from stress,” she said.  “A coconut represents our hard head with its white, sweet, flesh and juicy milk inside.  We ask Osun’s help to get clear (like that coconut milk) about what we need to be doing in our lives now.”

The honey, she said, was her favorite offering.  “Put honey on your lips before you speak, especially if the situation is hot!”

I immediately thought of the on-going conflict I have with a certain neighbor.  Maybe I’ll put honey on my lips the next time I go out to work in my garden.

“The eggs represent ovaries and procreation.  Fertility.  Easter is a great Osun time, too.”

After all of this preparation and accompanying explanation, Marilyn opened the floor for questions about, and responses to, the previous night’s story.  We asked questions to clarify our understanding of the story but also to deepen our connection to it.  Marilyn spoke of “the Law of Five” in the Osun stories and how it had to do with the evolution of DNA code.  “Story is medicine for stuff that we carry in our DNA code from way back,” she said. “…You come before Ifa – the Law – to change the time of death.”

Some parts of the discussion went over my head, but it was all interesting.  The time flew by.

After a short break, we came back and talked some more, but Marilyn also wanted us to develop more intimate relationships with three of the story segments she had told the night before.  She had three rituals for us to do so that we would “walk away with the stories fully in you, in your body.”

She spoke about the first story, the story of Containment, and said it had “landed somewhere in your body.  Where?”  To find out, she asked each of us to reach into a bag and draw out a tiny scroll (strip of paper) tied with a golden ribbon.  Each scroll contained a grouping of questions that had come to her through her meditations and discussions with Osun.  Contemplating the questions on your scroll and writing about them in your journal would show you where the story had landed in your body.

The scrolls had patterns of light and dark on them, sort of like an I Ching reading.

My group of questions was about being stuck.  I wrote about the questions in my yellow journal with my green pen.  I’m not sure I learned where the story had landed in my body, but I learned some other important things, so it was all good.  When we came back together as a group, those who wanted to could tell what they had discovered during their contemplation of their scrolls.

Then Marilyn gave us each a “honey pot” – a tiny clay pot, barely bigger than a thimble, on which she had glued three honey-colored beads.  She told us to roll up our scrolls, tuck them inside our pots, and set them aside.

Next Marilyn reminded us of the Birthing story.  She passed around a tray and invited each of us to take a small slab of modeling clay.  She told us to close our eyes and make the clay into the shape of a hole while we asked ourselves, “What are you birthing at this time?” 

She said the Yoruba people love to process.  (Me, too!)  She suggested we keep the clay and from time to time, take it out and mold it again, asking “What do I need to give birth to?’  The key is to not be afraid of making the opening.

And finally, she reminded us of the closing story, the story of Transformation from peacock to vulture, and taught us a special ritual that she does only rarely, maybe once every few years. 

She gave us a handout that explained how to make a special omelet.  She had gotten up early that morning to make the omelet for all of us to offer to the river.  It was there on the altar, beautifully presented on a plate rimmed with spinach. 

But first we each wrote a letter asking for Osun’s help.

Marilyn told us to write quietly.  “Where do you want to dream yourself?  Ask Osun to fly through the sun for you.”

Now I want to stop describing the mechanics of the workshop for a moment and confess that I had never felt much affinity towards, or even much curiosity about, the African continent before this year’s “Going Deep” retreat.  But at one point during Marilyn’s workshop, while people were molding clay or writing or talking with partners, or maybe it was during one of the breaks, Marilyn answered someone’s question with, “Well, you just never know (about the boundaries of reality and the space-time continuum.)  Maybe this (room full of Americans) is really a room full of Africans.”

A room full of Africans.

The thought opened something deeply peaceful in me.

When we all had our letters ready (”And you can add to them later,” Marilyn said, “Osun will always recognize you”), we took turns lifting the omelet plate, tapping it on the altar three times, and then placing our letters beneath the plate.  Our letters would stay there overnight, and at sunrise the next morning, Marilyn would give the omelet to the river and give us our letters back.

Now, though, it was time to carry our little honey pots down to the river and put them in.  We stepped to the edge in groups of five.  Marilyn poured honey over our cupped hands.  We tasted its sweet stickiness, and then washed our hands in the river, letting the water take both the honey and our honey pots and scrolls.

I think this was one of the most sensuous AND sensual workshops I have ever been to!  It was a real pleasure.

After another delicious lunch, free afternoon, and yummy supper, it was time to hear the third and last story.  More about this in the next post (which I will probably not have ready until this weekend, so please check back!)…

********** 

Marilyn Omifunke Torres will be performing and conducting workshops as part of “Strings, Rhythm, and Song: African American Roots,” June 28-July 3, 2009 at Mars Hill College in North Carolina.  To learn more, please visit http://www.mhc.edu/aaroots/index.asp.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

This is the second of four posts in a series about the third annual “Going Deep: Long Traditional Stories Retreat” held in Bethlehem, Indiana, on March 19-22, 2009.

The Storytelling

On Thursday night I and the other retreat participants walked over from the Storyteller’s Riverhouse to the old Schoolhouse to hear Liz Warren share “The Story of the Grail.”  There were a few local residents and other visitors in the audience as well.

The Schoolhouse has a kitchen, restrooms, and, I think, some small meeting rooms in its basement.  The main floor is divided into two large rooms, one of which holds the displays of a small local history museum.

The other large room still feels like an old-timey, all-grades classroom.  There is a large American flag and an upright piano on a raised wooden platform at one end of the narrow space.   There are also a couple of old school desks with the wooden seats attached to the wooden desks by thick, curved metal. Mostly, however, the space is open and flexible.

When we entered it Thursday night, we saw that someone had arranged a few rows of metal folding chairs in a half-circle facing one of the long walls.  Between the high windows on that wall, someone had asymmetrically draped long swaths of gauzy red, white, and black fabric and hung a small quilt that showed three black feathers floating over three large red crosses on a white background.  On a table in front of the wall were a couple of candelabras and some roses.

One of the “Going Deep” producers, Olga Loya, welcomed us and introduced Liz Warren.

Liz wore a black dress with red strappy sandals and silver earrings, plus an enameled wrist corsage of white roses. 

She began by holding up a short, curved stick that had a row of round bells along its side and a crystal on one end.  Liz pointed this “story wand” in each of the four compass directions, plus towards the sky and towards the ground, and shook it as she invoked the spirit of each direction, while the rest of us snapped our fingers.  Then she recited a poem that I later learned was by from “Midsummer Night and Other Tales in Verse,” by John Masefield, 1928.

Then she began to tell.

Her telling style was very relaxed, very natural, as if she were sharing something that was so much a part of her own being that she almost didn’t even need to think about it as she spoke.  Mind you, the story was very well crafted – i.e. deliberately shaped and paced with conscious decisions about language, volume, tone, etc. – yet it also felt as if Liz had actually been there in the time of King Arthur and was letting us know what had happened to people she knew personally.

The story she told was of Percival, a boy whose mother had lost her husband and other sons to the violence of knighthood.  She was desperate not to lose him, too.  Her way of protecting him was to keep him isolated and completely innocent of the ways of the world.

But one day when Percival was out playing in the woods near his home, some dazzling creatures covered in shining metal came by on horseback.  Percival had never seen anything like them!  He asked if they were angels, but they laughed and explained that they were knights who served King Arthur.  Percival ran home to tell his mother that he wanted to become a knight, too.

Her heart broke then, but she let him go.

Maybe you know the rest of the story, too, how Percival the young Innocent, through the course of many romantic adventures with both women and men, becomes Percival the Warrior, also known as the Red Knight.  How he finds himself at the Grail Castle, but doesn’t realize that that is where he is, nor what he should do there with the Wounded King, and he blows his chance to save the world and himself.  How he has more adventures, makes more mistakes, learns more lessons, and finally, finally finds his way back to a second chance at the Grail Castle.  This time he is able to ask, “What ails thee?” and “Whom does the Grail serve?”   This heals the Wounded King and allows him to die, and Percival becomes the Wounded King himself.

It is a wonderful, wonderful story, full of symbolism and hope.  Our wounds are also our gifts, our strengths.  And we are not responsible for the answers, only for asking the questions.

The Workshop

The next morning after breakfast the retreat participants gathered in the living room of the Storyteller’s Riverhouse for three hours of structured discussion and other activities to deepen our understanding of, and connection to, “The Story of the Grail.”

Liz gave everyone a green folder that held several handouts, a baggie of other supplies, and…a copy of her award-winning CD recording of the story!

I don’t listen much to recordings of storytellers because I so prefer the live experience, but I had bought this CD when Liz told this story at the first “Going Deep” in 2006 because I wanted the chance to catch more of the symbolism in the story.  I have listened to that first CD several times and admire it very much.  It was expertly produced by Susan Klein.  On Friday morning, I was delighted to now have a copy to give to a friend!

Liz started the workshop by reciting again the Masefield poem with which she had started her storytelling program.  Then she taught us a rousing, story-related song that she had written called “Oh Wandering Heart.”  It has several verses.  The chorus goes like this:

Oh wandering heart, oh wandering heart

When will you cease to roam?

Oh wandering heart, oh wandering heart

When will you come back home?

It was fun to sing!

Then we all settled into our chairs and Liz opened the floor for general discussion and questions about the story.  There is a lot to “unpack” in this story, and the various images resonate a little differently with each listener. It was illuminating to hear what other people had found powerful in the story, and what else the story had made them think of.  The discussion as led by Liz was both scholarly and respectful of the personal, if that makes sense.

That was the first hour of the workshop. 

After a little stretch break, we turned our attention to one of the handouts that Liz had prepared for us.  It was titled “Sovereignty and Storytelling.”  It focused on the character of Cundry:

“Cundry is a manifestation of the goddess of sovereignty – the goddess of the land.  In the Celtic tradition, he who would be king must accept Sovereignty unconditionally in both her hideous and beautiful aspects.  This is because the king must accept the land and its people in all their forms.”

When he does, there is a “sacred marriage between king and land and it has obvious parallels for all kinds of relationships, including storytellers and the stories they seek to tell.”

The handout included four prompts, such as “Recall a time in your life when you needed to be asked, ‘What ails thee?’”  First we reflected on them on our own, jotting down notes on the handout.  Then we each found a partner and took turns sharing our notes.  Then we came back together as a group and anyone who wanted to could share with the whole group his or her responses to the prompts.

Our green folders included several other handouts that Liz had prepared for us.  They focused on other aspects of “The Story of the Grail” and offered other powerful questions for reflection and exploration that we could work with on our own.

After a second short break, Liz asked us to pull out the baggies of supplies from our folders.  Each baggie contained two red-black-and-white-striped beads and three yards of narrow ribbon – one white, one black, and one red.  She invited us to “engage with our ribbons” while we shared personal stories of how the archetypes of Maiden, Mother, Crone, Innocent, Warrior, and King have been active in our lives. 

“Engaging with our ribbons” (I loved this expression!) meant gathering the three ribbons together and tying a knot in one end, then stringing on one bead, and then braiding the three strands until we got to the other end and knotted on the second bead.  People wore the finished pieces as double-bracelets or headbands or anklets, or they saved them to use as bookmarks or put them in their pockets as talismans.

Braiding while sharing whatever stories came up was a very soothing combination of activities.

At some point in the workshop Liz repeated one of my favorite quotes:  “If you bring forth what it is in you, it will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is in you, it will destroy you.” – Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels.

The workshop ended with all of us standing in a circle, holding hands, and repeating a sort of prayer that Liz had used in her telling the night before, too.  I don’t remember it exactly.  It was something about hoping to bring grail light to the world.  In any case, it was an uplifting conclusion to a very satisfying three hours’ work.

After lunch, a free afternoon, and supper, it was time to hear the next long story.  More about this in the next post…

********** 

Liz Warren is the author of The Oral Tradition Today: an Introduction to the Art of Storytelling.  This is the textbook that I have been using with my storytelling students this semester.  Liz teaches at the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in Arizona.  She produces the Mesa Storytelling Festival in Mesa, Arizona, and the Myth-Informed event at SMCC.  Her recorded version of “The Story of the Grail” received a Parents Choice award in 2004 and a Storytelling World award in 2006.  “The Path of Truth,” her recording of Arizona family stories, will be released later this year.  Every summer Liz teaches storytelling in Ireland for Study Abroad Ireland.  Learn more about SAI here.  Check out Liz’s Ireland Journal, too.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

This is the first in a series of four posts.

From late Thursday afternoon, March 19, 2009, to early Sunday afternoon, March 22, 2009, I attended the third annual “Going Deep: Long Traditional Stories Retreat” in Bethlehem, Indiana.  I got to hear:

** “The Story of the Grail” as told by Liz Warren

** “The Paths of Osun: the West African Yoruba Epic Journey of the Goddess on Heaven and Earth” as told by Marilyn Omifunke Torres

** “Gilgamesh” as told by David Novak

I have been to all three “Going Deep” retreats so far.  I blogged about last year’s in four posts that begin here.  The first “Going Deep” was in 2006, before I started this blog, but it, too, was a transformative experience for me.

How It Works

The specific insights and pleasures of the experience are different for each participant, but the pattern of the retreat is this: 

• 1. At night, hear an epic tale that doesn’t get told very often here in the United States because of its length.
• 2. Go to sleep after just a little bit of casual conversation and allow your dreams to respond to the story first.
• 3. The next morning, participate in a more structured discussion of the story, possibly accompanied by other activities to deepen your connection to it.
• 4. Use the afternoon to replenish yourself however you like, alone or with others. You might choose to get a massage, or have your palm read, or help make a group painting, or participate in an informal story-and-song swap, or go for a nature walk, or take a nap, or read a book, or write in your journal, or…
• 5. In between each of these segments, eat a home-cooked meal or snack and/or drink a glass of wine or cup of coffee with the whole retreat community.

This pattern of five is repeated twice, for a total of three times.  In other words, you get to hear and deeply explore three long, rarely-told stories in a deliberately created and safely contained communal setting.   

“Special” doesn’t even begin to describe the experience.

The Birthing of “Going Deep” (History)

This event used to be called a “festival,” but one of the producers, Liz Warren, said this time that “We are festive, but twenty people does not make a festival.  Plus, the four days include massages and reflections and so on that make it more truly a retreat, so that is what we are now calling it.”

There are three producers:  Liz Warren, Priscilla Howe, and Olga Loya.  They live in different parts of the United States (Arizona, Kansas, and California, respectively) and collaborate via phone and email.  Each makes her living as a professional storyteller, writing and recording and teaching as well as telling live to audiences all over the world, but telling mostly shorter tales for her bread-and-butter.  The “Going Deep” event came out of a yearning that each of them had to work with stories that are “too long” to be shared very often in their usual venues.

All three of them told at the first “Going Deep” in 2006 to get things started.  (See below for the full “Going Deep” story list.)  2007 was a resting year.  In 2008, Priscilla told a new story and Olga repeated the story she had told in 2006.  This year, Liz repeated the story that she had told in 2006.  I love being able to hear some of the stories more than once as the years go by.  These are epic and unfamiliar-to-me stories that reward repeated sharing even more than shorter, more familiar tales do.   These long stories are a form of medicine that help me get past victimhood in my own life and past the naïve expectations of a “happily ever after.”

The producers invite other professional tellers whose work they know and respect to be featured in the other telling slots.  In 2007, Illinois-based storyteller Megan Wells shared her “Helen of Troy” piece.  This year, Arizona-based storyteller Marilyn Omifunke Torres shared “The Paths of Osun: The West African Yoruba Epic Journey of the Goddess in Heaven and on Earth” and North Carolina-based storyteller David Novak shared his version of “Gilgamesh.”

Next year, Liz will tell a new story, possibly a branch of the Welsh “Mabinogi.”  In 2010, Olga will tell a new story, possibly a version of the “Popol Vuh.”  In 2011, Priscilla will probably repeat the first story she told…unless another long story has called to her to work on it in the meantime.  I don’t think anyone knows, yet, who the new guest tellers will be.  I am looking forward to finding out!

Here is a list of the seven long stories that have been featured at “Going Deep” so far. Each travels easily.  Each is an engaging piece of art on its own; each lends itself to continued discussion and reflection.  Please contact the individual tellers directly if you would like to host one or more in your community, with or without an accompanying workshop:

• Liz Warren – “The Story of the Grail” (Medieval England)(lizannwarren at yahoo dot com)
• Olga Loya - “The Aztec Creation” (Ending in what is now Mexico)
• Priscilla Howe - “Tristan and Iseult” (Medieval France)
• Priscilla Howe – “Queen Berta and King Pippin” (Medieval France)
• Megan Wells - “Helen of Troy” (Ancient Greece) FYI: Storytelling Arts of Indiana is hosting a presentation of this piece here in Indianapolis on Saturday, April 4, 2009.
• Marilyn Omifunke Torres – “The Paths of Osun: The West African Yoruba Epic Journey of the Goddess in Heaven and on Earth.” (Ancient West African Yoruba) (Westwindsstory13 at cox.net)
• David Novak - “Gilgamesh” (Ancient Sumerian)

Leaving the Nest (”Going Deep” at a New Location Next Time)

I am very happy that this unique event known as “Going Deep” is firmly up and running!  I look forward to participating for years and years to come!

However, I was sad to learn at the end of this year’s retreat that “Going Deep” will not be held in Bethlehem, Indiana again. 

For the first three years, “Going Deep” was hosted by Kentucky-based professional storytellers Cynthia Changaris and Mary Hamilton, who are also known as Scheherezade’s Legacy.  Cynthia owns a beautiful and innately healing bed-and-breakfast called the Storyteller’s Riverhouse.  It is a cheery, two-story yellow house right on the Ohio River in the tiny town of Bethlehem, Indiana.  Its library/dining room is filled with hundreds of inviting story collections and storytelling-related books.  Cynthia decorated the whole house with wit and love and a savvy eye for the rejuvenating powers of color and texture. 

By the way, I highly recommend it to any couple, family, or small group looking to get away for a while to work or play.  Please contact Cynthia at cchangaris at aol dot com for more information about rates and availability.

For the first three years, the Storyteller’s Riverhouse was the “Going Deep” headquarters.  Everyone gathered there for meals and workshops, and a few people slept in the bedrooms.  Cynthia arranged for the rest of the participants to sleep in various other bed-and-breakfast houses nearby.  She also engaged a cook (the gentle and skillful Eugene Ward, who is also a bookbinder and Episcopal minister) and cook’s helpers, two massage therapists, a palm reader, and cleaning staff.  She secured the town Schoolhouse for the storytelling concerts.  She coordinated airport pick-ups.  She did her best to match what she had with what people requested in terms of rooms, meals, etc.  I was one of her pickiest guests in terms of wanting access to quiet and solitude, and she even satisfied me!

Beyond all of that, she was, and is, a role model for me on how to be a gracious hostess.  Every year, she lovingly arranged flowers and passed snacks and even sang songs to adjust a room’s energy as needed. 

“Going Deep” just would not be the same in another location and without Cynthia managing the energy of the hearth.

However, even with the help of her business partner, Mary Hamilton, hosting “Going Deep” was a lot of work for Cynthia.  This year, Mary caught the ‘flu and was too sick to help.  Cynthia called in back-up in the form of Mary Kane and others, and the retreat participants had another wonderful time, but I think Cynthia realized that she could not keep hosting this relatively large event year after year. 

Also, I think that even though the producers want to keep the retreat to a small number of participants, they also want to explore the possibilities of developing larger audiences for the evening story concerts, which have always been open to the general public. 

For a number of reasons, then, it makes sense to nudge this growing baby out of the nest.

So…the three producers are looking for another hosting organization and/or location.  They already have several possibilities but are open to suggestions.  They will probably share details on the Going Deep blog as they are confirmed.  I will share updates here on my blog, too, as I receive them. 

And I have started a new piggy bank just for “Going Deep” travel funds, in case the new location is far away.  Even though I will miss the Storyteller’s Riverhouse and being cared for by Cynthia, I don’t want to miss the next “Going Deep” retreat!

In the Meantime, More About This Year’s Experience…

This year, as in previous years, “Going Deep” was, for me, an intoxicating mix of scholarship, art, mystery, and fun.  It was also a restorative blend of the female Maiden, Mother, Crone energies and the male Innocent, Warrior, King energies.  I will write about each of the three featured stories and accompanying workshops in separate posts after this one, but first I would like to record just a few comments about other aspects of the long weekend here.

I was proud to be the only person other than Cynthia and the three producers who has fully attended all three of the first “Going Deep” retreats. The pride is misplaced, of course, because all I did was pay my money and show up each year, but still I gloat.  Not only have I heard all of the featured stories and participated in all of the workshops, I have gotten to meet all of the tellers, retreaters and helpers.  The participants’ informal stories and gifts are in many ways as intriguing to me as the formally presented ones!

This year there were six of us from Indiana, six from Kentucky, three from Kansas, two from Arizona, two from California, two from North Carolina, and one from Ohio, plus two back-up helpers that I think were from right there in Bethlehem.  The participants came from a wide variety of religious backgrounds.  The group included fulltime listeners, fulltime tellers, and a variety of hybrids.  Several people in the group this year were storytelling instructors.  I enjoyed talking shop with them, sharing ideas for textbooks and learning activities. 

I enjoyed spending time with people I already knew but don’t get to see in person very often.  I also enjoyed getting to meet new people and relishing their senses of humor, their life experiences, and their unique passions and areas of expertise related to storytelling.  I loved seeing photos of old friends’ new lovers and new cats.  I loved seeing photos of a new friend’s daughter’s wedding. 

I was also honored and blessed to be included in a healing ceremony on the equinox for a participant who was going to undergo serious surgery the following week.  That ceremony included a song that was new to me but which I now love.  The words go like this:

I come from the mountain,

Always from the mountain,

I come from the mountain,

Turn the world around…

Those four lines are repeated with a second tune, and then all eight lines are sung again but with “mountain” replaced by “river,” and then by “center.”

We also sang a lot before lining up to go through the buffet line in the kitchen.  It is a tradition to sing the following grace before every meal at the Storyteller’s Riverhouse:

“Thank You for this food, this food, this glorious, glorious food!  And the animals, and the vegetables, and the minerals that make it possible.  Amen!  Amen!  Amen!” 

By Sunday morning, we were singing it in a three-part round.

On one of the free afternoons, I received a deliciously insightful and encouraging palm reading from Louisville-based Rebecca Henderson.  She has offered readings on Thursday and Friday afternoons at “Going Deep” every year, but last year I got two massages instead of getting a palm reading and I didn’t get the opportunity to talk much with her informally either.   We don’t communicate with each other except at “Going Deep” and she has probably read more than a thousand palms since the last time she read mine in 2006. 

Therefore I was surprised and delighted to receive a detailed reading from her that both echoed what she had seen in my palms three years ago and illuminated very specifically how my lines (and my self) have shifted, and for the better.  I jotted down pages and pages of useful notes after I left her little alcove.  Most of it is too personal to share here on my blog, but I will tell you that I am still “very serious” but no longer “hard to get along with” so there is hope for my love life after all!

On another afternoon this year I received a therapeutic, deep tissue massage from Louisville-based Marissa Holden.  Oh, my goodness, that woman is strong.  I have received blissful massages from other massage therapists at “Going Deep,” but she is the one massage therapist who has been there all three years on Friday and Saturday afternoons.  I received a “stone massage” from her the first year and a “Swedish massage” this year.  Having the heated stones on my body was an interesting and enjoyable experience, but I think I prefer the more traditional, hands-on style.   Every year after “Going Deep” I vow to get massages more often here at home, but so far I haven’t made time for it.  Maybe this year I will.  It always amazes me when a massage reveals how much tension I carry in my body. 

I had brought books with me to read, but I decided to set them aside and read a short but pithy book that Priscilla Howe had brought and raved about.  It was called The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield.  It gave me some good food for thought about my own resistance patterns and how to overcome them.

I thought about numbers more this year than in the past.  This was the third year of “Going Deep,” an event that has five essential elements, and so far there have been seven featured power stories.

Our first story this year, told by Liz Warren, was “The Story of the Grail.”  The number three was an important number in that story.

Next we heard the story of “Osun” (pronounced “Oh-SHOON”) as told by Marilyn Omifunke Torres.  The number five was an important number in that story.

Last we heard David Novak’s interpretation of “Gilgamesh,” in which the number seven figured very prominently.

I walked in on a conversation one afternoon this year in which one of the participants said something like, “We (humans) are not ready for eleven (in our conscious stories) yet, but it’s coming.” 

Yikes!  I wonder what that means.  But I am more curious than afraid.  And in the meantime, the combination of a “three story,” a “five story,” and a “seven story” was more powerful than the sum of its parts.

I also want to mention that Bethlehem has virtually no Internet access, no cell phone reception or street lights.  I see this as an advantage.  I don’t own a cell phone, but I am an Internet and social networking junkie most of the year.  I treasure you, my blog readers, and I love being able to stay in touch with my friends and loved ones in a variety of ways.  However, I think in any relationship it is good to take a break sometimes, too, and give everyone a chance to miss each other a little.

So I go on an “e-communications fast” while I am “Going Deep.”   This year was harder, though, because some people asked me if I would like to ride with them to the public library in Charleston in the afternoons to use its free wireless Internet access.  It was very tempting!  However, I managed to decline.  I went for the whole 75 hours (including travel time to and from the retreat) without once reading my email or updating my Facebook status or chatting online or checking my blog for comments.  Whew!

Finally, I want to record what a blessing, what a refreshment it was to be able to see a night sky drenched with stars.

And now let me tell you about the stories and the workshops.  They were each wonderful in their own ways, but the mix of them together was even more satisfying. (Please see the next three posts, coming soon.)

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com