The word “storytelling” conjures an image in most people’s minds of a librarian reading a book to a group of wiggling small children, showing pictures as she reads. Or, perhaps, they remember chilling ghost stories around a campfire. Others remember Grandpa and his cronies spittin’ and chewin’ on the front porch as they gabbed on a lazy summer day. Some people think of Garrison Keillor on his Prairie Home Companion radio show. All of these are forms of storytelling. However, until you have experienced the magic of a storytelling festival, you can’t know the true allure of the art form.
From the time that humans first formed words, there have been stories. Ancient cultures used the tales as entertainment, as teaching tools, and to preserve their history.
In our technological world, we don’t tell stories as often as we did even a few decades ago. Where once people gathered around a glowing fire and talked, we now gather around a glowing television and say nothing. Couch potatoes and their little tater tots have lost the art of storytelling.
Thirty years or so ago there was a Storytelling Renaissance in the United States. From humble beginnings in Jonesborough, Tennessee, a “movement” developed. Storytelling festivals sprouted up all over the country. Some of those are gone now in the wake of the “911 disaster.” People didn’t want to travel, and the festivals went belly up.
I’m not well versed in all of the festivals that are available these days. There are a few noteworthy ones in the next few months in my neck of the woods—which is North Texas:
February 15th-17th 2007. The Winter Tales Storytelling Festival in
Oklahoma City, OK is produced by The Arts Council of Oklahoma City and is held at Stage Center downtown. In addition to excellent concerts throughout the day, this festival offers informative workshops on how to tell good stories and how to incorporate storytelling into everyday life.
March 2nd-4th, 2007. The Squatty Pines Storytelling Retreat will be held in Tyler, Texas on the shores of Lake Tyler. The East Texas Storytellers Guild hosts this one. They haven’t updated their website for this year, but we will hope they do that soon. I’ll be telling there this year, so come on down.
March 29th-April 1st, 2007. The Tejas Storytelling Association hosts the Texas Storytelling Festival in Denton. Again there is the opportunity
to take a workshop or two, as well as hear concerts throughout the day.
There was a story going around several years ago. A village in an African country was finally connected to electricity, and a large corporation donated television sets to every household in the village.
Later, a visiting anthropologist found all of the televisions stacked in a hut. He asked one of the villagers why the people weren’t using them.
The man replied, “We have a storyteller.”
The anthropologist said, “But, the television knows thousands of stories.”
The villager smiled and said, “But, the storyteller knows us.”
If you have never been to a storytelling festival, give one a try. You might be surprised to find that you get hooked on the experience.
