We had a feast of Scottish stories onTuesday, if not the haggis & whisky to wash them down.  But there was traditional scottish shortbread, kindly donated by Rosanna, our true representative of the bonny land north of the border.  Thinking about it, Storytelling in Hope members come from a fair spread of different lands, countries and traditions: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Australia, Sri Lanka, just off the top of my head.

One of the joys of story sharing, is to see the links, the twists, the sudden illuminations that come from hearing the familiar plots from a different tradtion or perspective.  So we now understood 'puddock' as the Scots for frog, when just a few weeks ago, 'Tales of the Paddock' initially had us thinking it was something to do with fields.  The word 'fairy' can mean so many things, but in our Scottish stories there was no doubt that these folk were full sized, cunning and very powerful, akin to the Irish Sidhe.  And there were more references to the historical links between Scotland and Ireland: their shared religious tradition in the story of St Colomba, St Magnus and the heron; their rivalry, in the tale of two fools.  And for the unexpected, there was a definite twist to the well known tale of sleeping armed men in a cave, in the border tale of the horse dealer, and an easier solution than name-guessing, for the wifey who couldn't spin!

Dates for your diary:
Next week, 31st January, we celebrate the Chinese year of the Water Dragon. 
7th February - first meeting for our next group performance, the Laxdaela Saga (performance on 15th April)
14th  February - half term break, no meeting
18th Febrary - Open House in Forest Hill
21st February - Workshop with June Peters

Motto for 2012: Treat yourself to the luxury of listening

Tuesday's AGM set the basis for a great year of storytelling ahead.  In the Bakehouse we will be hosting at least one professional performance, in September, and holding group performances in April and December.  The first of these will be the Laxdaela Saga from Iceland, in April.  Something a bit different will be the storytelling and circle dance workshop performance of the Baba Yaga, led by Storyteller Sian Jones and Dancer Karoline Streicher, in November (venue to be arranged).  

The Saturday Open Houses, alternately in Forest Hill and Rochester, in months when there is no other performance, are continuing.  It's a great format: informal storytelling with food!  The next one is on Saturday 18th February in Forest Hill.  We will also be taking storytelling into Charlton Care Home in the summer and autumn, invited back by popular demand! 

Last, but not least, is our core event, the weekly storytelling circle at St Mary's Community Centre in Eltham.  The regular numbers have increased over the past year, and the stories fairly bounce off each other. The next meeting,  Tuesday 24th January, will have a Scottish theme, in honour of Robert Burns birthday. 

A bit of rejigging to the themes is necessary, as we hope to get involved with The Project Grimm - an ambitious world wide project to celebrate next year's bicentennial of the first publication of Children's and Household Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. 

So, Tales from Grimm will now be the theme on Tuesday 8th November, to be followed with a performance that we hope to record at the Open House on Saturday 12th November, at Claire & Jude's.  More details soon.

Fame will now be the theme for Tuesday 22nd November.

We will also be telling stories at a care home in Greeenwich before Xmas, and hope to arrange some storytelling to children at the new Blackheath Library.  Watch this space.

Tuesday night's theme of 'sun and stars', in honour of the recent equinox, brought a fascinating mix of creation myths, moral yarns and elemental struggle, with stories from Nepal, North America and the Fens.

We also set the themes for the coming weeks, which are:

• 4th Oct: Old Age
• 11th Oct: Renewal
• 18th Oct: Nature's Bounty
• 25th Oct: Half Term break - no meeting
• 1st Nov: Ghoulies, ghosties and long leggedy beasties (plus witches etc)
  
• 8th Nov: Fame!
• 15th Nov: Group Performance first rehearsal
• 22nd Nov: Tales from Grimm
• 29th Nov: Misery (or Joy)
• 6th Dec: Group Performance second rehearsal
• 13th Dec: Xmas party, with tales of generosity & giving
• Xmas Break
• 10th Jan: Tempus Fugit

We held our second, very successful Open House last Saturday.  This is the ideal setting for informal storytelling – easy chairs, plenty to eat and good company.  Highly recommended.  

Your next chance to take part is Saturday 11^th June, at Deirdre & Tony’s in Rochester, which will have a Russian theme (strong stuff - the oral equivalent of Vladimir Putin wrestling bears). Telephone 01634 841176 for details. And if you can’t make that, there’s the summer party at Claire & Jude’s on Sunday 10^th July (date changed from Saturday 9^th July), when in the week before St Swithin’s Day, the topic will be ‘Weather’.

Themes for our Tuesday storytelling circle up to the summer break are:

 24^th May Siblings – are Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters typical?

31^st May no meeting - half term break

7^th June  Lost worlds

14^th June The Essence of Story - workshop with Debbie Guneratne (we think its about memory, but can’t quite remember)

21^st June ‘Ere be Dragons

28^th June  Help & helpers – who can you trust?

5^th July  Independence

Summer break until 13^th September

Our weekly Ring of Hope meetings welcome any stories of 10 minutes or less.  But for those who like the stimulus of telling stories on a given theme, here are ours for Spring 2011.

We had a lively discussion about the shape of Club activities in the months ahead. Everyone wants Ring of Hope to carry on, and Tuesday night attendances are now consistently high enough to make them not only more fun but - most importantly - self financing too. So we will be booking Tuesdays ahead to the summer at least.

There was also a lot of interest in returning to regular monthly weekend performances.   This is difficult in our straightened times, with costs ever rising and grants a distant memory.  But Claire & Jude (Forest Hill), and Deirdre & Tony (Rochester) have offered their houses on alternate months for performance based evenings. The format would be to browse and share story collections either in book form, or on CD, or tape or to work up a group performance or run a Story Bazaar. People might feel like trying out a longer story than would be suitable for a Tuesday evening.

We are also moving to Saturday evenings, which are easier than Sundays for many people.  The dates are 16^th April 5 pm (T & D), 14^th May 5 pm (C & J),11^th June 5 pm (T & D), 9^th July 6.30 pm (C & J).  This final date will be a Party in the Park, with all contributions: stories, songs, poems, music, dance and of course food, all welcome. 

There was also particular enthusiasm for the continuation of our famous group performances, to give purpose and challenge to our telling, as well as producing very entertaining events.  We would hire the Bakehouse to stage these.  The plan is to have one in December, based on a collection of stories (to be decided) and next spring to work with a professional storyteller on a more substantial project. 

We are also continuing our storytelling in the community.  Mary has arranged a return visit to Charlton Care Home on Tuesday 19^th April, 2 pm.  Interested tellers should contact Mary direct. 

In the meantime, we have Sef and Raphael’s performance at the Bakehouse on Sunday 13^th March to look forward to.  

Pennie

This was a most fruitful evening, with June commenting on 4 stories, giving universal pointers for shaping and developing them and our narrative techniques, which everyone present could share.  More of the same on Tuesday 23^rd November, everyone welcome. 

First, here are June’s reflections on the evening, followed by notes of some of the other issues she raised.

I’ve just had a lovely evening at Ring of Hope, St Mary’s Community Centre. I heard 4 extraordinary stories told in 4 very different styles, and I have come home feeling invigorated and lifted up by the experience.

All the stories got me thinking about really big issues on the way home so that means the telling of the stories really worked well.  

I have already told the storytellers what I thought, but on reflection I have other thoughts. 

I do hope that Sam, Tony, Claire and Deirdre won’t mind me posting here some more of what I feel about the stories and the possibilities of how they could be told.  

The stories that they told, I have never told.  I don’t know them, so maybe none of these ideas will work in practice! But these are my thoughts. 

Sam’s war story: 

Sam’s style is gentle and touching. 

What I heard was a story of an innocent lad on holiday who stumbles in his adventuring into a heart of darkness – into the arms of the embodiment of war, the eater of men.  She is most tender, and knows before he comes that he will be her next lover, and when he comes, neither he nor she chooses anything different.  They embrace each other at a spiritual level.  At the end he goes into her arms as do all his generation. 

You do mention romantic roses I think.  If you do want to use roses, then I think you need to acknowledge the roses at the end and make some stronger link with roses and poppies. 

Tony told a road kill story: 

Tony always gets us down to it and into the visceral nitty gritty of a story. And he always chooses really challenging stories. 

This story went round and round in my head.  I loved it. 

There is a mother and a daughter.  The mother tells the daughter the rules.  Whether the daughter is rebellious and goes against her mother’s rules, or whether the daughter is good and obeys her mother’s commands, she is doomed and the story ends on a cliff hanger.  

It’s an interesting story for the storyteller and gives a lot of opportunities to us in how we choose to tell it. 

Questions: how would this story work if it was a mother and a son?  a father and a son?  a father and daughter?

Gender is always a question in stories.  It counts more in some stories than in others.

In the end the final character in this story is a silhouette who is the wielder of a knife so it can be any gender and that sends the story into another spin.  If it’s mother and daughter what if the wielder is a woman?  If it’s father and daughter what if the wielder is a man… etc. etc.  The story is a great psychological ‘prism’.  You make a choice as listener and teller as to who it is who acts in these ambiguous stories.  As storytellers we can say exactly what we want to say about how we feel and think about things through the story.  It’s an opportunity to think about what we mean about sexuality, intention, rules and resolution, boundaries and perhaps redemption. There are other alternatives. 

Claire told a Breton devil story: 

Claire’s voice has resonance and authority. In fact I would say her devil had frightening gravitas. 

A lad meets the devil and an enchanted horse. 

Claire’s story is about the specific – a specific place and specific people and that’s where the story has its strength.  

This was a story told wonderfully through dialogue.  

I asked Claire for more narrative to contextualize the narrative. Narrative, the oral sort, needs the inner emotional workings of the storyteller. 

Deirdre:  

A fantastic story – where do you find them?  

The story of a sad souled lake that flies away when the people who really love it and know how to tend it are driven away. 

If you are going to use questions in the telling of your story –

• Let your questions be real questions for real people and be prepared for real answers or tailor your questions properly so you get the right answers 
• Root your story in the real answers 
• Use what you have found out from your audience in your story   
• Know your story well enough to be able to absorb the random information and yet still be able to tell it. 

Then the lake will be a real lake.  

It is a real lake. I did believe it.  

The foliage needs adjusting, that’s all.

Love June

Further notes from the workshop

Sam – the Countess and the Soldier:

• Tell the story from one perspective      
•  Allow the audience to work things out for themselves – not everything has to be spelled out.        
• Cut the back story to a minimum, and spend time on the turning point of the story

Tony – the Escaped Murderer:

•  Oral stories cannot be as subtle as written ones.
•  Use repetition – 3 phrases & key phrases
•  Establish relationships and keep them going

 Claire – Jean Luc and the Devil:

• Literary openings can seem very aggressive, use storytelling conventions ‘Once upon a time’, ‘there was and there was not’ etc, or introduce yourself, to ease the audience into the world of your story.
• Storytelling is a bridge between the everyday world and the world of the story.  The Storyteller is the link and moves between the worlds.  Narrating the story is like standing on the bridge, but dialogue is being completely in the story world.
•  Introduce important elements early on, with 3 points of description

 Deirdre – the Lake with a Soul:

•  Keep generalisations outside the story world but can link in.  Story is about the one not the many.
•  Keep the view point as close to the audience as possible, not mediated by another character.  

June brought with her much from the archives of Storytelling In Hope which has been performing since the early 1990's. Not all of these were tangible objects some were just stories and reminiscences. 

Storytelling in hope started on the premise - “A platform to tell & good models to follow,” and quickly established itself as a place for the spirit of storytelling to live. 

The first ever group performance (At the Bob Hope Theatre – hence the name) was of the King & The Corpse by Heinrich Zimmer. Drawing from Eastern and Western literatures a selection of stories linked together by their common concern for the problem of our eternal conflict with the forces of evil. Beginning with a tale from the Arabian Nights, this theme unfolds in legends from Irish paganism, medieval Christianity, the Arthurian cycle, and early Hinduism. 

After this the group moved on to stories from The Mabinogion the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folk tale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions. 

Great fun was had discussing these tales and it wasn't long before someone mentioned the Haida tales, especially those collected and transcribed by Robert Bringhurst in his A Story Sharp as a Knife, which has been described as “A special book that opens the mind and understanding of the heart” - or as one of SiH described it “Like Vertigo but more Shamanic!” - truly you had to be there to understand that one. 

As can been seen SiH has always taken Storytelling tradition seriously while having a great deal of fun.

Many thanks to June for a hugely enjoyable and fascinating evening.

Don't miss June's next master class on 19^th October. For more details click here . Newcomers are more than welcome, even if you have never told a story in your life – although that's very unlikely!

Next Week: AGM

One of the group had a brain wave for a new game called 'Head's for Tales' and everyone else was happy to give it a go. So someone starts a tale and when they have told enough they flip a coin and if it’s heads something good happens in the story or if tails, something bad.  Then the next person takes up the tale and when they have told enough they flip the coin. 'Head's for Tales' – a fun game of free form storytelling that really gets the imagination going. 

So we had the story of Shy Jack with the amazing singing voice and his competition with nasty Nigel the Tax inspector. 

Followed by an old man who goes on a very strange journey with a collection of animal friends. 

We then experimented with some different rules and outcomes. 

Some also had a story they wanted to try or tell. It’s strange. You can read a story, you can hear a story but you only know if it really works and how it feels when you tell it yourself to appreciative ears. 

Mary told the beautiful story of Two Shepherds, which comes from the West of Ireland. An amazing story which sticks in the brain with some great images and no moral. 

Wooden Frock was told by Maggie. Another one of Calvino's weird and wonderful Italian tales. A long story that needs good concentration to tell. 

And rapping it all up was Chris with the story of the Strange Dream. Although when the poor hero of the story wakes up I think it was more of a nightmare. 

Just a reminder that our last meeting before the summer break is 20^th July.

We begin again on 14^th September. In the Autumn season we will have some storytelling master classes led by professional storyteller June Peters. More details to come. 

Next Week: More fun and games

Five of us present – Chris, Mary, Maggie, Deirdre and Tony.

Discussed the forthcoming storytelling session at Lewisham Hospital on Thursday 17 June.– Chris, Tony and De and Mary.

• Chris told the Little man on the Little island, our pass-it-round story where each teller adds their own ending.  It was great.
• Deirdre told The Dead Moon – the story from the English Fens where the moon is captured by the Bogles and Boggarts and the fens loose their night light. The moon is saved in the end.
• Tony told a Polynesian story – Saving Time – a young boy Maui confronts the speeding sun and bargains with it to slow down, thus giving more hours of daylight.
• Mary told a story about a many-coloured coat that was re-cut into a jacket, then into a waistcoat, to a cap and then a bow-tie. All this during the growing up of a man’s family, each item for a new member of the family.
• Maggie told a true story about a kitten stuck in a tree, saved by a vicar and a woman’s moment of conversion with a gift from God! 

Well Parish news and exciting details of forthcoming events were dealt with as quick as possible so we could get on with some storytelling. 

We kicked off with Deirdre telling her version of our 'tell it and pass it on story' the Little Island. It’s really great to hear the same story told over and over, evolving as it goes. Will we ever agree on what the end should be? Come along and find out. 

Now as is often the case one story leads to another and the story of the Little Island reminded Debbie (great to see you back) of a Japanese story that she had been told while she was in Indonesia, The Golden Sea. It had resonance with the Little Island and after Debbie had told it, it resonated with the whole group. 

And then we were really going with Chris and the Mouse Princess, a couple of true stories from Tom and Claire. Followed by Ben reworking an old tale to fit a new situation and giving it some local colour. Anne told us a wonderful story of Scottish Kelpies (which are water spirits that take the form of horses and like to drown their riders! Not to be confused with an Australian breed of sheep dog that has pointed ears!!). And it was all wrapped up by Tony telling the Hunting of Death a Rwandan tale.

Wow after that we all went home and slept soundly dreaming of other worlds and other lives.

 Next Week: Stories on the the theme of The Moon. It should be an illuminating evening. Oh and Chris will have a go at The Little Island, perhaps the moon will play a role in its new ending?

We kicked of with trying to come up with the Top Ten children’s stories that a teller really should know and inevitably we couldn’t agree and came up with a longer list than ten. Here it is – in no particular order:

• Jack and the Beanstalk
• The Emperor’s New Clothes
• Three Little Pigs
• Goldilocks
• Little Red Riding Hood
• The Princess and the Pea – but told along with The Paper Bag Princess
• Rapunzel
• Billy Goats Gruff
• Hansel and Gretel
• Aladdin
• Rumplestiltskin
• Ginger Bread Man
• The Ugly Duckling
• Cinderella
• Beauty and the Beast
• Snow White

 Well that’s what we came up with. Anyone want to try a list of stories for adults?  You can use the Comment link at the bottom of this post to give us your ideas for essential stories for children or adults, or any other feedback on TnB.

What do you do when you don’t have an ending for a story? You bring it along to SiH and start a ‘Tell it and pass it on’. So one of our tellers had an original story that he didn’t know how to end, he brought it along told it to the group and passed it on. So next time we meet Deirdre is going to have a bash at re-telling it and putting on her ending and so it will go until we reach a suitable conclusion.

We also reviewed some of the video from the last Group performance which was Parzival.  This was a good exercise and quite reassuring for a number of tellers.  Its good to be able to look back on an event with a bit more of a detached critical eye.  We hope we may be able to post some clips up on this website if we can secure the performers permission. Keep your eyes open. 

And then some more stories:

Vanessa told the Calvino story ‘Mr Crocodile’ and gave it a bit of local colour.  It was a good chance to run through a new story that she was telling to a group of 8 year olds the next day.

The Green Ladies of One Tree Hill from the book Folk Tales of the British Isles, edited by Michael Foss was told by Deirdre, a beautiful and classic tale.

Next Week: No SiH as its half-term. Next meeting 08.06.10 -  Which will be a straight forward evening of storytelling. Bring one along.  Oh and don’t forget an object to go in the ‘Story Bag’.

We got physical! How much should we use our bodies in telling? How can we use gesture to greater effect? And an experiment in storytelling to help us do this! 

Well once we got going it was another lively night. I must find a better word than lively otherwise I'm doomed to repeat it every week.  So first we had a discussion about Gestures,  what they are and if we should or need to use them, did I say discussion perhaps I should say a debate! We then considered Descriptive & Emphatic gestures and how we should think about how we can fit them naturally to our own style. And then after Tea and bickys we had a bash at 'Shadow' telling. Hum what's that?

 Well the audience faces a wall (Stay with it) and the story teller stands behind the audience and is lit from behind (Get it?). So what the audience watches is the tellers shadow.  This means that if you are nervous about telling or just want to experiment with a story the audience isn't watching you. They are watching your shadow, taking a lot of the pressure off.  Also the story teller can watch his own performance and see how static his telling is – this is much easier and nicer than telling to a mirror. Telling into a mirror is like listening to your own voice on a tape – Horrible! This was a fun exercise, probably because folks were prepared to give it a go. 

So we had Mary tell a great version of the 'Emperor's New Clothes' – what a great story this is, you might think that everybody knows it, but it really stands up in the telling. Great. Maggie did the story of the 'King March' with some real use of shadow and Tony gave us the 'Gold Coins' which was his usual expansive self.

Watching the shadows did make me wonder what it would be like for a real performance and how much you could do with it. I wonder if anyone will take up the challenge? 

Next Week: Stories on the Theme of Trees. Bring one along and share it with the group.  Story that is not a tree! Mind you we have been known to share rhubarb on a Tuesday night. In more ways than one. Oh and don't forget an object to donate to the story bag.

A night of just good old random storytelling and story chatter. Amongst the tales, we heard from Tony an Italian folk tale ‘Quack Quack!’ Stick to my back!  A story about a very strange duck. A Chinese story from Ben - ‘The Jar’. An Urban legend in the form of the ‘Cat in the safe’ from Tom and to round it up from Deirdre a Duncan Williamson story of the Seal folk of Ireland - “Mary and The Seal”. A nice relaxing evening of stories. Great fun.

Well what a lively night looking at how varying our Pitch, Pace & Power can help to bring a story alive. The alternative of course is to keep an even pitch throughout the sentence, which at best sounds odd and at worst dull, boring or confusing. We all modulate our voice naturally while we are speaking to fit the mood or emotion of what we are saying. However put an audience in front of us and nerves and anxiety can take over draining our voice of its life and spark, modulation puts the life in. The ‘Devil’s Breeches’ story from Italo Calvino gave us a chance to analyse what parts of a story call for modulation and then to have a go at using some of the techniques we discussed. Great to see engaged and ready to have a go.

‘The Devil’s Breeches’ gave us all an introduction to the Italian folk tales collected by Italo Calvino.

Italo Calvino: One of the most inventive of European writers and a master of allegorical fantasy, Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 but grew up in Italy and spent most of his life there. An essayist and journalist, as well as a writer of fiction, he was awarded the prestigious Italian literary award, the Premio Feltrinelli. He died in 1985.

Italian Folktales: Meticulously selected and artfully recreated, the selection of stories in Italian is vast and ranges geographically from Corsica and Sicily to Venice and the Alps.

This is a really interesting collection of folk tales, better, some would say, than the brothers Grimms'. The flavour of raw, hard peasant life comes through on every page, and very little imagination is needed to transport you back to 17th century taverns where story-tellers spellbound their listeners with these even more ancient stories of ogres, bandits, princes, witches, priests, kings and thieves. Some are ghost stories, meant to curdle the blood, while others are cheery tales of youngest daughters outwitting the bandits and marrying the prince that would charm any child. Some are witty, knowing tales of corrupt priests, or bandits competing with each other for title of best thief. They are all deeply moral, if sometimes heavy on the retribution and revenge. These are earthy, funny, tragic, witty tales which have not been "tidied up", censored for sex or violence, or otherwise bowdlerized.

Next Week: Modulation and the use of our voice.