Storytelling Part 2
Overview
Introduction to the Five Beats of Indigenous Storytelling
Join KSU Tribal TAB and Partners for the Digital Indigenous Storytelling virtual workshop, the first of the 2021 Tribal Resilience & Indigenous Planning Virtual Workshop Series. Building on and expanding upon the information covered in the 2020 Tribal Resilience & Indigenous Planning Storytelling series (recording can be found at here), this workshop will include a detailed exploration of the Five Beats of Indigenous Storytelling, learning how to relate place to narrative, and understanding how better to explain your place and the story of your place. Participants will gain hands-on experience documenting and telling their own account using digital platforms and an understanding of how this may be applied to competitive brownfields grant proposals.
The Digital Indigenous Storytelling virtual workshop will take place over two days:
Part 1 Educational Session: Thursday, May 20, 2021 View on-demand recording
Part 2 Hands-on Session: Thursday, May 27, 2021; 1:00 – 3:00 pm CST
Speakers will include KSU Tribal TAB Staff & Partners:
Joseph Erb, University of Missouri
Dr. Cynthia Annett, KSU Tribal TAB
Dr. Ted Jojola, Indigenous Design + Planning Institute, University of New Mexico
Michaela Shirley, Indigenous Design + Planning Institute, University of New Mexico
Jennifer Clancey, KSU Tribal TAB
Who should attend:
This training is open to all tribal officials, tribal employees, and their programs. Environmental Directors, managers, technical staff, planning department, and grant writers are especially encouraged to attend. This series is intended to enhance community participation and provide information to tribal decision-makers.
Thursday, May 27, 2021
1:00 – 3:00 pm CDT
Agenda
1:00 – 1:15 pm
Session Logistics / Introductions – Jennifer Clancey
1:15 – 2:00 pm
Storytelling – Joseph Erb and Ted Jojola
· Review of Five Beats of Indigenous Storytelling
· Storytelling Activity Breakout Session
· Sharing and Recap of Storytelling Activity
2:00 – 2:45 pm
Mapping – Cynthia Annett
· Review of Mapping Tools
· Mapping Activity Breakout Session
· Sharing and Recap of Mapping Activity
2:45 – 3:00 pm
Discussion/Session Evaluation
Indigenous Storytelling
In Part 1 of this series we discussed the 5 beats method of Indigenous Storytelling.*
The 3 beats style of modern Western storytelling;
Beat one: Introduce the main character
Beat two: The journey/crisis of the main character
Beat three: The resolution of the crisis of the main character
This form of storytelling is sometimes described as "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back." There are lots of variations on this theme, but Hollywood typically goes for a three beat structure.
Stories may, however, include the land as an important element in the development of the plot: this is common in some storytelling traditions, especially in Indigenous and Traditional Communities. These types of stories are used for intergenerational knowledge transmission, to contextualize knowledge, to integrate values and perceptions in knowledge systems, and to provide insights into relationships between events, characters, places, culture and society. Places are important in these stories, and that is what allows us to create meaningful maps that can be used in storytelling.
Indigenous Storytelling* has been characterized as having 5 beats:
Beat one: Set up the theme or the journey you are going on, and what land and cultural framework you will use in the story
Beat two: Introduce the main character
Beat three: The journey/crisis of the main character
Beat four: The resolution of the crisis of the main character
Beat five: The message and resolution of the theme where the character and land are once again in balance with one another
The first and fifth beats explicitly involve the relationship between the character, the land and the cultural/social context of the story. By creating a balance between land and character, the story provides a deeper role for place in our story as compared to a simple three beat story structure.
A story written in the three beat structure can be transferred to different places, different times, and different social settings without changing the structure or meaning of the story; in contrast, the five beat structure situates the story in a specific place and a specific social/cultural context and it can't be moved to a different place without changing the meaning of the story. In the three beat structure, place is often simply a stage upon which the action occurs; in the five beat structure, changing the location of the story changes the story in a fundamental way.
Often times "story maps" are created by marking locations named in a story without incorporating the land into the story itself. If we use the five beat structure, using a map in storytelling means that we forefront the land and provide a geospatial context for the story, moving through the landscape in specific ways. Using the five beat structure we can tell the story while walking the land, and that sets us up for storytelling using Google Earth Web or Google Earth Pro to virtually move on a path through the 3D landscape in an immersive fashion.
*Clague, Pauline. "The five beats of Indigenous Storytelling." Lumina: Australian Journal of Screen Arts and Business 11 (2013). You can read the article and a discussion CLICK HERE
Today's activity
We will use the 5 Beats method of Indigenous Storytelling to explicitly incorporate specific places (in mapping jargon, we will geolocate places in our story). This allows us to tell the story while "walking" the land - that is, we can move through Google Earth while telling the story and use the immersive 3D capabilities of Google Earth to provide the experience of physically walking through the landscape upon which the story unfolds.
We will begin by using Jamboards to organize our stories into the 5 Beats structure, then develop our stories in Google Earth Web. We will use written text, links, photographs, and video to create our stories (see examples below).
Create your story
Choose a partner to work with in a breakout room. You will each work on your own Jamboard, but will share your work on each of the beats with your partner and discuss your ideas for developing your story.
Go to the folder below and click on a Jamboard to expand it and work in Edit mode.
Change the name of your Jamboard to your initials to make it easier to find in the folder.
You can add text, shapes, sticky notes, images, etc. to make your points. Use the drawing and eraser tools to draw freehand.
Your Jamboard will be public, so be careful about not sharing private information such as addresses.
Pay particular attention to Beats 1 and 5, these will be important in setting the tone for your story.
Once you have finished outlining your 5 Beats in Jamboard we will create a Google Earth Web map as an aid to tell your story. Use the instructions in the next section below to build your map.
We will use Google Jamboards to create storyboards with the five beat method. Remember that each part of the story must be tied explicitly to a specific location so that we can map the story in the next step. We will work in small groups in breakout rooms to create our stories.
Map your story
The advantages of using Google Earth Web for Storytelling are:
Maps are in 3D with rich, immersive topography and the angle and direction of view can be controlled
The text, photos and videos are nicely formatted and easy to show in presentations
You can use HTML coding to add customizations to your information panels
Maps can be shared on the web
If you don't have a Google Account create one here. You will need to have a Google Account and access to Google Drive in order to store the map file so that you can share it on the web.
Google Earth Web training materials from Earth Outreach
Examples of Google Earth Web storytelling
