Memorize Key Bits.
Memorize the chants, songs, and key phrases you have marked. Do not worry about getting songs exactly right. Songs change from singer to singer just as stories change from teller to teller. Try to use song in your tale in the same way your source used it—to carry the plot forward, or to amuse and engage your audience—but do not worry because you cannot reproduce the tune and rhythm of the musical notation. Unless you are a skilled ethnomusicologist, you are unlikely to come close to an accurate reproduction of another culture's music. The important thing is that the story be shared and that the intent of the story's music be communicated.
Analyze.
Note the tale's basic structure. Some teachers recommend writing an outline of the tale at this point. I find that unnecessary unless you rely heavily on visual cues in learning. Just notice the tale's structure. For example the structure of "Turtle of Koka" (given in full on p. 111) is quite simple:
Opening: Turtle is caught.
First Episode: Turtle is threatened with axe.
Turtle sings that axe cannot harm him.
Second Episode: Turtle is threatened with hammer.
Turtle sings that hammer cannot harm him.
More episodes follow the same pattern, as many as the teller wishes.
Ending: Turtle escapes.
An awareness of this simple story structure is about all you need to tell that particular tale. Others are more complicated, but having a sense of the tale's structure will help you find your way through the story should you become befuddled.
Say the Story.
Put down the book and begin telling the tale aloud. Tell it in your own words. If you forget, stop briefly to check your text, then continue or begin again.
Repair.
After you have told through the entire tale, recheck your marked text. Were there special phrases you had hoped to use which you omitted? Is there a spot where you muddle the action? Plan a path over any rough spots in your telling. Take time to retell aloud those bits that felt shaky.
Tell it Through.
Tell the tale once more. Try not to stop this time. Keep telling through to the end. Force yourself to improvise, and just keep telling. With practice you will gain confidence in your ability to ride over rough spots and keep the tale moving.
Evaluate.
Make a note of spots which still need improvement. Then congratulate yourself on the amazing progress you have already made with this tale. Imagine the fun you are going to
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have sharing this story with your audience.
A note on visualization: Many tellers believe it is important to take time to imagine visually each scene of the story. Some draw story maps or flow charts. If visual stimulation is important to your learning, take time to do this. The bibliography at the end of this chapter gives sources which will help you with visualization techniques. Some tellers learn entirely through oral and kinesthetic cues and do not use the visualization process in story learning. Try both, and decide which is best for you. Also notice that certain simple tales such as "The Gingerbread Boy" rely mainly on movement and sound and do not need much visualization, whereas a personal story of your childhood may need intense visualization before you can bring it to life for your audience.
Story Practice on the Go
The next step in your tale learning will occur as you go about your daily routine. Tell the tale out loud as you drive to work. Tell it in the shower. Take a brisk walk after lunch and tell the story to yourself as you stride along.
Find a few functional story-practicing slots in your day and use them whenever you have a new tale to learn. My own performance-day rehearsals are: Shower (first rehearsal); fifteen-minute commute to the library (second rehearsal); ten-minute break in staff-room courtyard (final rehearsal half an hour before storytime).
A Final Rehearsal
Plan a final rehearsal slot to take place just before you tell. This rehearsal should be high-energy, on your feet, an active telling. You want to awaken your body to its storytelling potential. You have to be ready to control and challenge your audience. This is your "stage warm-up." Tell the story aloud, facing your imaginary audience. Tell to them, communicating with them, as if they were really there.
Now all you have to do is go out there and tell it once more, this time to your audience. This time you will have their feedback to hold you up, so this telling will be the easiest.
Keep Telling
My theory of story learning is based on the premise that we learn by doing. Since storytelling is a group activity, it is difficult to perfect a tale without an audience. Learning a story alone in front of a mirror is rather like practicing dance steps without a partner. You can memorize the patterns, but the flow of the event cannot be learned until you engage with :mother. Rather than spend excruciating hours memorizing and rehearsing at home alone, I suggest you pick a great tale, learn its simple structure, play at putting it into your own words, and then begin telling it.
The trick is that you must tell it more than once. You must tell the tale several times, refining your telling with each experience. To do this, you must arrange storytelling opportunities. Tell the story to your own children at home, tell it to your class if you are a teacher, offer to share the story with your children's class if you are a parent, tell it at Sunday School, to your cub scout troop ...
And don't stop there. If you are a classroom teacher, ask another teacher to trade classes for fifteen minutes so you can tell to that class. Offer to tell to the kindergarten on your lunch break. Tell on campouts, at family picnics; gather the neighborhood children together and tell.
And remember that children will want to hear this story told again. You can tell the same story several times to one group, letting the children take on increasing ownership of the tale with each telling.
Keep Evaluating
After each telling, take time to evaluate. What went especially well? Did you add new elements to your telling which you would like to keep? Have had habits crept in that you
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want to lose before the next telling? See page 28 for a self-evaluation form that you may find useful.
Save it for Later
After the tale has begun to take shape, tape one of your tellings. Simply slide a recorder unobtrusively under your chair and switch it on. Store the tape for future reference. When you want to tell this tale next year, you will not have to rely on your memory to recreate the tale. Simply play the tape and you will at once recall your own unique telling of the previous year. If you do not make this tape, it is probable that some of the delightful inventions which worked so well in this telling will be lost forever twelve months from now. It has happened to me; don't let it happen to you.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Suggestions for Story Learning from Other Tellers
Breneman, Lucille N. and Bren Breneman. Once Upon a Time: A Storytelling Handbook. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1983.
Farrell, Catharine. Storytelling: A Guide for Teachers. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1991.
Livo, Norma J. and Sandra A. Rietz. Storytelling: Process and Practice. Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited Inc., 1986.
Sawyer, Ruth. The Way of the Storyteller. New York: Viking Press, 1942. Reprint c. 1962.
Schimmel, Nancy. Just Enough to Make a Story. Berkeley, California: Sisters' Choice Press, 1992.
Shedlock, Marie L. The Art of the Story-Teller. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1951.
Visualizing Your Characters
Birch, Carol L. Image-ination. Frostfire, 1991. An audiocassette to lead you through an exploration of character and place.
Farrell, Catharine. Storytelling: A Guide for Teachers, 21-23. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1991.
Ross, Ramon Royal. Storyteller, 45-46. Columbus: Merrill Publishing Co., 1980.
Performing the Story
You are prepared to tell your story, then forget yourself You are the instrument; the story is the thin
g.
—Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen, Storytelling and Stories I Tell
You have learned a story. You have rehearsed it, imagining your audience. Now they are there. What do you do? You go to your audience with excitement, for you are about to give t hem such a delight—a gift you have for them. But in order to unwrap the gift you must first set the stage. You will not just plop this jewel down among the groceries on the kitchen cabinet. Instead, you will prepare a special place for it.
Set the Stage
Think carefully about your storytelling arena. You do not want distractions at your back—a door that could suddenly burst open, a clock the audience might watch, excessive visual clutter, or worse of all a grimacing child. Arrange your space to avoid such distractions. Ask the members of your audience to rearrange their seating if need be. Although you can tell stories effectively virtually anywhere, creating a special "story space" is useful. You might move the children to a rug in the corner of the classroom, or gather them in a corner of the playground with a fence or tree as a backdrop. When I 101(1 on the bookmobile in Hawaii my story space at one stop
was limited to six beach mats thrown down in the middle of a tarmac parking lot. Of course, I preferred those stops where I
could gather the children at the foot of a huge monkey-pod tree. But the mats served to define the story spot and helped us become a group.
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The story spot must define the event as something out of the ordinary.
The story spot must help create group identity.
The story spot must protect the group from distractions.
Prepare Your Audience to Listen
Do not begin your story until your listeners are settled into their listening positions. Make sure they are arranged so that you can maintain eye contact with each member of the group. Gently remove potential distractions, such as cats, balls, or squirt guns.
The Pregnant Pause
You have introduced your story. Your audience is ready. You are ready. In this moment you pause. Look your audience over, and gather them together as you prepare to begin.
The Opening Bridge into Story
You have carefully crafted your opening sentence for effect. You have delivered it with confidence. Your audience is skeptical, nervous; they are wondering if you can really do this.
It is your job to put them at ease. Convey your joy and your confidence in this story venture. You must literally pick them up with these first words and carry them confidently through the tale.
Your opening phrase is your bridge between the world of ordinary conversation and the other-world of story. This crossing must be both magical and deliberate.
Communicate
You are into the story—now all you have to do is tell it. This does not mean recite it, or perform it. This means communicate it. Speak to your audience. Look into their eyes, read their responses. Your thoughts should be on the commu-nication with your audience ... not on your own appearance and performance flaws.
Pace Yourself
Be aware of the pacing of your tale at all times. Do not rush through it. Slow gently to a pause, then race into rapid-fire telling as the story suggests. Stop. Let the story fall to the ground like a drifting balloon. Then tap it into the air and begin again. Give your audience spaces to breath ... to contemplate within your story. Provide them rushes of activity and excitement. You will have planned all of this as you rehearsed. Now take the time to relax into your story and play with its pacing.
Caretake Your Audience
Throughout the telling stay in tune with your audience.
have carried them into this realm of story. They are your responsibility. Watch them, respond to them. Pace the story to fit their needs. Stretch to communicate with each listener.
Revel in Language
Lie back on your tale and revel in the beauty of its language. Take time to roll lush words around on your tongue. Give each gorgeous phrase its due. You are performing fine language, just as a musician performs a piece of music. Take care with your phrases and be confident in their potential for bringing joy to your audience.
Dance Your Story
Move your body with your story. Stand perfectly still, or move through your space as the story requires. Let the story tell you how to move.
Stay true to your own being, however. Do not attempt wild gestures if these feel unnatural to you. Develop your own style and take confidence in it. Two common mistakes made by tellers are (1) holding the body too rigid and not letting the story move the body naturally, and (2) gesticulating wildly and leaping about the room without control. Gestures are made
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potent by the control with which they are executed. Make a definite end to each movement. Give enough ... but not too much.
End with Confidence
The tale's ending is the bridge back from the other-world to the mundane. There must be a deliberate feeling of gently setting the audience back down into their own lives. They have journeyed with you and now the journey is done. The tale's end should have the sense of a goodbye kiss. Your final words must be well-rehearsed and delivered with care.
The Calm After the Tale
Rest quietly for a few moments after your tale's close. Let your listeners return at their own pace from the dream world of the story or recover in silence if this is one of those tales which ends in an exuberant rush.
Accept that You Have Performed Well and Pleased Your Audience
Learn to enjoy the pleasure of your audience. You have worked hard to perfect this tale. You have given pleasure. Let them give back to you through their laughter, their tears, their applause, and their words of appreciation.
Do not feel slighted, though, if your audience shows little response. Some tales do not evoke outward responses. Some audiences take tales in silence. It is often these very audiences which carry the tales home and cherish them. The tale received in silence may be the most powerful tale of all.
All this must sound intimidating. But my last advice is the most important of all:
Don't Worry about Performance Technique ... Just Tell!
Each of you has a teller inside ... a voice eager to share those tales it loves. Just relax. Embrace your audience, and let that teller out. Begin by sharing the tales you love most in a simple, direct way. Learn to love the rapport with your audi- ence, the feel of words flowing across your tongue, that sense of images pouring from your heart into theirs. First experience the joy of telling ... then you will return to your tales with the desire to perfect them.
I refuse to even discuss technique with my students until they have had experience in shaping a tale through repeated tellings. I demonstrate for students a few simple, sure-fire tales, then ask them to pick one of those tales and pass it on to as many audiences as possible before the class meets again. No technique, no advice to remember, no way to do it right, no way to do it wrong. Just tell.
Storytelling is like swimming. No amount of advice you read or hear can help much until you have felt the buoyancy of the water. Once you have thrown yourself onto the waves and felt them push back, you can relax and take joy in that support.
So it is with storytelling. Once you have thrown yourself onto the audience and let them push back at your tale, you can let go of your fears and begin to play.
Remember not to take yourself too seriously. Just relax and enjoy sharing a good story. Later, if you want to perfect your tale as an art form, consult the sources in this chapter's bibliography. A high degree of artistry is not necessary or perhaps even useful for those of us who are not aiming at a career as a professional storyteller. We are about joy, not art. Your own unrehearsed telling may already be perfect for your needs. The rigors and terrors of polishing technique sometimes frighten tellers and cut off their creativity before they have had a chance to learn to love their own inimitable story style.
Tellers who love their tales and their audience almost al ways bring delight. Each of us is different—quietly seate
d or loudly leaping, speaking in cultured tones, or irreverently robust—and brings a unique perspective to the tale. No one else can tell the tale as you can tell it. Be proud of your gift to the tale. Rest assured that no matter how many famous tellers may take the stage, none of them can tell that tale quite the way you can.
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Evaluating Your Performance
Here are some questions to help you think about your performance. As you answer them, consider also: What was the value of this performance to your audience? To you? To your group?
Communication and Audience Caretaking
Did you really see your audience?
Were you trying to communicate with them as you told?
Were you caring for the audience and aware of their needs and responses?
Delivery
Did you take time to pause and collect yourself and your audience before you launched into your tale?
Was your ending skillful? Effective?
Did you allow your listeners to savor the ending in their own ways before breaking the story trance?
Did you use your voice well to carry your tale's meanings?
Did your body tell the tale with you? If not, how can you help your body join your voice, mind, and heart in communicating with your audience?
The Story-Teller's Start-Up Book Page 2
