About Melissa Baker
Twisted yarns and tall tales!
Starting in the 1970s there has been a significant wave of storytelling revivalism in the United States, Canada, and across much of Western Europe. Drawing on earlier revivals of oral traditional or “folk” music, dance, and crafts, this revival has spawned a new class of free-lance professional storytellers of which I became one starting in Ireland in 2008, more or less by chance.
(see article in footnote below for more on the revival of storytelling)
With my NYU Tisch school of the arts diploma in my hand, I’d gone to New Caledonia to create a theatre company in 1995 and worked with the indigenous Kanak people creating theatre there. It was a real eye-opener – to the struggle for indigenous rights, to the phenomenon of culture shock and to the role that “ancestors” play in the invisible world that intertwines with our own. Hearing about this invisible world as I worked alongside the Kanak actors that were creating the show, going to the islands and inland to stay in the “tribes” and experiencing traditional ceremonies and weddings was life changing to me.
I came back to the US to learn more about the native people of my homeland (and also get a master degree from UC Davis in directing) in 2001. Parallel to my studies, I visited many Native American reservations, especially the Pine Ridge reservation where I met people over several years, collected stories and participated in the Summit Meeting of 2006 hosted by Owe Aku at Bear Butte.
Through very inexplicable circumstances I arrived in Ireland in 2007 to create “transdisciplinary” circus/theatre/dance work with the support of the Irish Arts Council. Parallel to this I decided to create an itinerant theatre inside a traditional Traveller Wagon. I got the wagon built and then realized it was much too small for theatre, but since I already had many bookings for this wagon throughout the summer of 2008, I had to come up with something fast. Thanks to my oldest children, (who were little then, and loved the crazy stories I made up) I decided to simply tell my stories. Fortunately, the very wonderful Irish storyteller Liz Weir got ahold of me and said… “We thought you might be a little lost, do you need some help ?” (Indeed, I had wandered into storytelling quite unawares). She and Kate Murphy started showing me the ropes as I toured around Ireland wondering if I wouldn’t just give up directing theatre and circus to do this.
Back in France (I didn’t explain how I’d been back and forth to France over the years doing theatre and making babies but it’s a love story, so I’ll tell it another time)-
Back in France, I looked up Michel Hindenoch, one of the renowned members of the Storytelling Revival that I mentioned above. Just about every storyteller in France has been trained by him. He’s not only a very fine teacher but also a sort of storytelling philosopher. His work and his book (untranslated as yet) are not so much “how to” techniques as they are a deep reflection on the art of storytelling. What is it about storytelling that sets it apart from all other arts? Why tell traditional stories?
When I started these “training/workshops” that resembled what I fancied Socrates must have been doing with his little group of philosophers, I was the kind of storyteller who would take bits and pieces of traditional fairytales and mix them together to create some wacky and comic shows.
Michel kept asking me why I didn’t just tell traditional stories? Inside I was thinking, “they’re boring, they’re old, I want to surprise audiences with my originality, I want to make them laugh”. But, he kept asking me why?
When Michel tells stories, they are very simple. He does almost nothing discernable- doesn’t use fancy words, doesn’t show off his creativity or great writing skills, doesn’t perform the characters, doesn’t look at the audience. He plays his instruments the whole time seemingly in a kind of trance state while he just simply tells the story. And it is so believable, so alive, you’d think it happened to him yesterday. The wildest fairytales become more real and truthful than anything you’d live through in “real” life. He blows me away.
When he teaches he doesn’t hammer, he’s like the water in a stream running over the rocks. He takes his time. I think anyone who sticks with him long enough will get to the bare bones of themselves. I just gave up struggling. It slowly dawned on me that he was absolutely right. These stories have been handed down through centuries, polished over by the telling of thousands of tongues. These ancestral tales came to us because of their great power. Who knows what mysteries and miracles they work. People are always talking about what’s “new”, “new” has become the single currency, the all out absolute of value. But, researchers are endlessly mining the depths of these stories for their jewels. In these old stories there is something that is far more powerful than individual creativity. There is the collective imagination of millions. There is the powerful test of time.
However, analyzing these ancient stories will not heal us, it will not relieve psychological stress or resolve cultural contradictions. Only telling the story will bring happiness and hope. Thankfully Michel has devoted his life to figuring how to tell these stories and teach us how to do that. I have decided to practice what he taught me. So far, I’m enjoying the heck out of it.
In France visit www.melisssabaker.eu for my French site!More articles on the revival of storytelling available at Wikipedia in French Also see : Oracy in the New Millennium: Storytelling Revival in America and Bhutan Dr. Joseph Sobol∗
In France visit www.melisssabaker.eu for my French site!
More articles on the revival of storytelling available at Wikipedia in French
Also see :
Oracy in the New Millennium: Storytelling Revival in America and Bhutan Dr. Joseph Sobol∗