Advanced Storytelling
A journal and discussion of the coursework for Advanced Storytelling, READ 5230, at ETSU Spring 2006.Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Day 3, 4 & 5
Day 3, Feb. 1, 2006
Present: Tenika, Safia, Nomusa, Cynthia, Leah.
We began with a rearrangement of the room, attempting to transform the room for performance. We stood the tables on end to create a semi-circle of panels as a backdrop for performances.
We practiced a series of voice and speech warm ups:
*humming the affirmative. We simply hum "yes" to a series of questions. "Is this storytelling class?" mmm-hmm, and so on.
*We said "hi" and "hello" to various parts of the room,listening to the changes in sound resonance.
*We practiced a series of tongue-twisters and rhymes, focusing on telling the story while also practicing the articulation. Key principle: when doing speech warm-ups, always keep the mind engaged. Mindless speech may be precise, but will be meaningless.
Storytellings:
Tenika: Czarina Harpist
Nomusa: The Girl Who Loved Birds
Safia: Master of Masters & Hero/Warrior text from "For Colored Girls..."
Leah: Bath Time
Cynthia: Fortune's Fool
Assignment: Class 4, prepare and present a group-designed olio incorporating some selection of written text.
Day 4, 2/21
Present: Tenika, Nomusa, Cynthia, Leah. Absent: Safia
Room set for performance. Music playing: What's Love Got To Do With It?
Olio performance:
1. Tenika: Czarina Harpist and Hermione text
2. Leah: Julie and lyric selections
3. Nomusa: Witch's Treasure and Mandela speech
4. Cynthia: Mending a Wall and Galax Cove
A successful combination of stories, each feeding into each. Upon reflection we could see that the stories chosen formed a coherent whole with the Czarina story and the Galax Cove story working as "book ends" to hold the program together. Suggestion: call back "surely two were one" for the concluding remarks.
Story work:
Tenika: work the emotional transitions with pace, physicality, and voice. Let the emotions effect you in order that they may effect us. Work on a more centered and present relationship with your listener. Open up to us a little more. Beware of drifting into a classical "tone" that covers over the simple sense of your story.
Leah: work the orientation of the listener. Who is talking? Let us know the secret identity of the story (Romeo and Juliet) sooner so we can be in on the final moments when the relationship goes bad. Find a segue from prior story. We worked the text of "Ever feel like your life is a play" as it relates to the Czarina. Memorization becomes less of a problem when the idea is clear and the intention is known.
Nomusa: work the logic and consistency of the story: what brings the witch into play? What might the treasure mean to the young lovers? How does the story relate to the selected text from Mandela? Can the text function as closure for the story?
Leah & Nomusa: work on self-discipline with your creativity. You both have very good ideas and can be prolific with your discoveries but you need the discipline to retain what you discover and use it with intention and design.
Cynthia: very effective, conversational treatment of poem. As the final teller, you can make use of any images that have gone before as you expand on your story: the gold treasure, the 2 as 1 idea, and so on. Work on being grounded and present with the listener. This does not mean merely having a "low center of gravity" but also a willingness to look directly at your listener. In your case this means bringing your gaze down to the eye-level of the audience. For this, you need to overcome some of the fear of performance. Remember: you are telling the story for the benefit of your listener; this is your gift to us. Keep your focus on this intention and self-consciousness will begin to fade away.
Friday, 2/24
Barnes & Nobles Olio: What's Love Got To Do With It?
Much growth and improvement in the story composition and delivery! Bravo!
The lessons to be learned from this performance have to do with your relationship to the performance space. The setting had a great deal of noise competition. This kind of space requires much greater speech energy to overcome the ambient noise and to keep the listener engaged. Articulation is the key, not volume. Each word must be energetically pronounced. This is sometimes referred to as "ice-cubing" the words. That is, speak each word distinctly as if it is a separate and solid cube of ice. Further work needs to be done on final sounds of words. When we lose the ends of words, we lose the sense and energy of the telling. Every time a word fades away the energy fades away. The intention to tell the story must be matched by the intention to give the listener your words.
Day 5, 2/22
Present: Tenika, Nomusa, Cynthia, Leah. Absent: Safia
We began with a party game: celebrities. We each wrote the names of 5 commonly known characters (real or imagined) onto 5 separate pieces of paper. Teams were chosen. Names were drawn from a bowl. Each team had one minute to guess as many names as possible.
Round 1. you may say anything about the person other than the name.
Round 2: you may only use one word.
Round 3: you may only use gestures.
We had fun and discovered that we are not on the same common ground of culture: Who is Richard Nixon? Who is Kofi Annan? Possible lessons for storytelling are found in the intention to inform the listener, the compression of the redundant information from round to round, and the use of both voice and gesture to convey information.
Character centers. We did variety walks n response to a series of common metaphors describing character: head in the clouds, heart of gold, sly as a fox, timid as a mouse, and so on.
We explored physical centers for various character types: Head (intellect) heart (emotion) Gut (appetite) Groin (Sensuality) and saw how these centers can be seen in various parts of the face: Cheek (emotion) Forehead (intellect) Lips (sensuality).
We explored how subtle changes in body centers can allow us to flow through the characters and energies in our stories.
Shakespeare sonnets. We all looked at Sonnet LXV (65) and reviewed
iambic pentameter
sonnet structure (3 stanzas of ABAB finished with a couplet AA)
breath of the length of the line
development of an argument, a point being made, often posing questions and then offering an answer
verbal conceits (word tricks) such as the contrast of "black ink" with "shine bright"
speech sounds: vowels carry emotion, consonants carry sense (connotative vs. denotative)
Assignment: select and memorize a sonnet for presentation on Day 6.
Memorization tip: learn the sonnet from the bottom up, bearing in mind that as we speak, we are mentally moving toward our point. Memorization from the bottom up prepares us to think forward as we speak.
Present: Tenika, Safia, Nomusa, Cynthia, Leah.
We began with a rearrangement of the room, attempting to transform the room for performance. We stood the tables on end to create a semi-circle of panels as a backdrop for performances.
We practiced a series of voice and speech warm ups:
*humming the affirmative. We simply hum "yes" to a series of questions. "Is this storytelling class?" mmm-hmm, and so on.
*We said "hi" and "hello" to various parts of the room,listening to the changes in sound resonance.
*We practiced a series of tongue-twisters and rhymes, focusing on telling the story while also practicing the articulation. Key principle: when doing speech warm-ups, always keep the mind engaged. Mindless speech may be precise, but will be meaningless.
Storytellings:
Tenika: Czarina Harpist
Nomusa: The Girl Who Loved Birds
Safia: Master of Masters & Hero/Warrior text from "For Colored Girls..."
Leah: Bath Time
Cynthia: Fortune's Fool
Assignment: Class 4, prepare and present a group-designed olio incorporating some selection of written text.
Day 4, 2/21
Present: Tenika, Nomusa, Cynthia, Leah. Absent: Safia
Room set for performance. Music playing: What's Love Got To Do With It?
Olio performance:
1. Tenika: Czarina Harpist and Hermione text
2. Leah: Julie and lyric selections
3. Nomusa: Witch's Treasure and Mandela speech
4. Cynthia: Mending a Wall and Galax Cove
A successful combination of stories, each feeding into each. Upon reflection we could see that the stories chosen formed a coherent whole with the Czarina story and the Galax Cove story working as "book ends" to hold the program together. Suggestion: call back "surely two were one" for the concluding remarks.
Story work:
Tenika: work the emotional transitions with pace, physicality, and voice. Let the emotions effect you in order that they may effect us. Work on a more centered and present relationship with your listener. Open up to us a little more. Beware of drifting into a classical "tone" that covers over the simple sense of your story.
Leah: work the orientation of the listener. Who is talking? Let us know the secret identity of the story (Romeo and Juliet) sooner so we can be in on the final moments when the relationship goes bad. Find a segue from prior story. We worked the text of "Ever feel like your life is a play" as it relates to the Czarina. Memorization becomes less of a problem when the idea is clear and the intention is known.
Nomusa: work the logic and consistency of the story: what brings the witch into play? What might the treasure mean to the young lovers? How does the story relate to the selected text from Mandela? Can the text function as closure for the story?
Leah & Nomusa: work on self-discipline with your creativity. You both have very good ideas and can be prolific with your discoveries but you need the discipline to retain what you discover and use it with intention and design.
Cynthia: very effective, conversational treatment of poem. As the final teller, you can make use of any images that have gone before as you expand on your story: the gold treasure, the 2 as 1 idea, and so on. Work on being grounded and present with the listener. This does not mean merely having a "low center of gravity" but also a willingness to look directly at your listener. In your case this means bringing your gaze down to the eye-level of the audience. For this, you need to overcome some of the fear of performance. Remember: you are telling the story for the benefit of your listener; this is your gift to us. Keep your focus on this intention and self-consciousness will begin to fade away.
Friday, 2/24
Barnes & Nobles Olio: What's Love Got To Do With It?
Much growth and improvement in the story composition and delivery! Bravo!
The lessons to be learned from this performance have to do with your relationship to the performance space. The setting had a great deal of noise competition. This kind of space requires much greater speech energy to overcome the ambient noise and to keep the listener engaged. Articulation is the key, not volume. Each word must be energetically pronounced. This is sometimes referred to as "ice-cubing" the words. That is, speak each word distinctly as if it is a separate and solid cube of ice. Further work needs to be done on final sounds of words. When we lose the ends of words, we lose the sense and energy of the telling. Every time a word fades away the energy fades away. The intention to tell the story must be matched by the intention to give the listener your words.
Day 5, 2/22
Present: Tenika, Nomusa, Cynthia, Leah. Absent: Safia
We began with a party game: celebrities. We each wrote the names of 5 commonly known characters (real or imagined) onto 5 separate pieces of paper. Teams were chosen. Names were drawn from a bowl. Each team had one minute to guess as many names as possible.
Round 1. you may say anything about the person other than the name.
Round 2: you may only use one word.
Round 3: you may only use gestures.
We had fun and discovered that we are not on the same common ground of culture: Who is Richard Nixon? Who is Kofi Annan? Possible lessons for storytelling are found in the intention to inform the listener, the compression of the redundant information from round to round, and the use of both voice and gesture to convey information.
Character centers. We did variety walks n response to a series of common metaphors describing character: head in the clouds, heart of gold, sly as a fox, timid as a mouse, and so on.
We explored physical centers for various character types: Head (intellect) heart (emotion) Gut (appetite) Groin (Sensuality) and saw how these centers can be seen in various parts of the face: Cheek (emotion) Forehead (intellect) Lips (sensuality).
We explored how subtle changes in body centers can allow us to flow through the characters and energies in our stories.
Shakespeare sonnets. We all looked at Sonnet LXV (65) and reviewed
iambic pentameter
sonnet structure (3 stanzas of ABAB finished with a couplet AA)
breath of the length of the line
development of an argument, a point being made, often posing questions and then offering an answer
verbal conceits (word tricks) such as the contrast of "black ink" with "shine bright"
speech sounds: vowels carry emotion, consonants carry sense (connotative vs. denotative)
Assignment: select and memorize a sonnet for presentation on Day 6.
Memorization tip: learn the sonnet from the bottom up, bearing in mind that as we speak, we are mentally moving toward our point. Memorization from the bottom up prepares us to think forward as we speak.
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