storytelling

Storytelling

by Bob on November 29, 2007

I had an amazing evening. I was invited by the director of a Boston organisation to go to a puppetry and storytelling performance in downtown Boston, mostly for children and their parents.

I was using the computer, fraught with all its technological eccentricities, and seeming awe-inspiring graphics and effects, when I was asked to have some dinner and attend the performance.

I wondered if it made sense. It had been so long since I was at such an event, perhaps even since my own childhood. So I was reminded of two things: The song "Stop Making Sense" by the Talking Heads, and that Charles Dickens reminded us to always be as simple-minded and open-hearted as a child would be, when we are adults.

So, I deserted the cyber-world for this dinner and performance.

And I was stunned.

There was a roomful of children, mostly sitting on the floor, and their parents and adults on chairs. And a couple of people in wheelchairs.

The performers were only two: a man and a woman. They had very simple musical instruments, like a seven slat xylophone and jaw harp and flute or tambourine. While one told a story, the other carefully played an instrument very softly to complement the storytelling.

But the real magic was in the imagination and physical human animation of the two storytellers. These stories were about folk tales and legends from many countries, such as China, Kenya, Europe and America.

The gestures and verbal articulation of the storytellers captured the hearts and minds and souls of the children and adults. We were captivated by the simplest things in words and images. There wasn't even a microphone. It was storytelling at its finest, with the audience having a lot of fun and involved deeply.

It's a far cry from television with it's purely electronic illusion. Or sound recording on tape or record or CD which loses the physical gestures and presence.

I was reminded how simple life really can be and what Dickens had written about always having a kind of child-like innocence.

I was at once a child and an adult all wrapped in one. And the children were simply children, not terribly anxious to grow up and be adults yet, which is their treasure and blessing.

Then everyone went into the next room to make their own puppets and bring them back to perform. You could be a moon, a sun, or an ocean.

Of course the last story told before that had been a folk legend about how the moon and the sun got in the sky, and why the ocean is on earth.

The brothers Grimm, prominent and erudite scholars, collected and were fascinated by these folk tales and yet felt they were important to mankind.

Dr. Bruno Bettelheim wrote about "The Uses of Enchantment" as a deeper psychological study.

But let's keep it simple. How the moon and the sun got into the sky and why the ocean stayed on earth, despite modern Quantum Mechanics in Physics.

Then after this beautiful dose of human entertainment and simplicity, I walked out onto the Boston Common where there were dancers and skaters welcoming the turning on the the Christmas tree. Lights everywhere. Nice, but more complicated than the storytelling and puppetry.

Sometimes it seems it's useful not to grow up into blinding adulthood quite all the way.

Dickens was right. And he knew it.