Advanced Storytelling

Day 6, Tuesday, Feb 28

Present: Tenika, Nomusa, Safia, Cynthia, Leah

We began with a discussion of the performance at Barnes & Noble.
Key points:
The Teller's instrument is the performance space. You will often be telling stories in rooms that were not designed for public speaking: school gymnasiums, community centers, library reading rooms, hospital wards, and so on. Look for the best setting to allow you control of the listeners' attention. Is the background busy? Are there distractions in the sight line of the listener? Where are the traffic patterns for people to arrive and leave? Acoustically be aware of how the area you will be standing in supports your voice. Will the walls provide an acoustic shell for your voice to resonate? Are there ambient noses that will challenge the listeners' attention?
What to do when the ambient noise provides competition: put your energy into the clarity of your speech, not the volume. Volume is important and must be maintained to fill the area, but the clarity of speech if of primary concern. "Ice cube" your words by over-articulating. "Send" the words to your listener by energizing the final sounds of your words, especially the final sounds of a phrase or statement. Do not stop speaking before you run out of words.

Warm up exercises:
Deep breathing.
1. Standing fist to chin, exhale while opening the mouth to the ceiling, inhale through the nose while lowering the head and raising the elbows. Fist remains pressing under the chin throughout.
2. In "child's pose" on floor, sitting on the heels and hanging forward over your thighs, breath deep into the small of the back. With the inhale feel the spine lengthen, with the exhale feel the forehead reach for the floor.
3. On the back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor ("creative rest" posture), place hands on belly. Breath deep, raising the hands with the belly as the diaphragm expands. Hum on the exhale and feel the vibration through the core of your body connecting the lips, throat, chest and belly.

Word work:
Vibrating "V" "TH" & "Z" for "mask resonance" - the front of face is energized.
Tip of tongue: t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-ah, d-d-d-d-d-d-d-ah, n-n-n-n-n-n-ah, l-l-l-l-l-l-l-ah.
*Avoid "splashing" the breath on plosive sounds like "t" and "p'
Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers: practice with hand in front of mouth, Speak the story while keeping the splash of breath at a minimum. When warming up with a microphone, use this exercise to test whether you are "popping" the mic with your breath.
Words as Sounds.
For the storyteller, words are sounds, not letters. We matched initial sounds and then matched final sounds and then performed a "daisy chain" in which the final sound of one word became the initial sound of the next. This activity exercised energizing the initial and final sounds of our words and practiced performing under pressure.

Sonnets:
Nomusa began with Sonnet XIV (14) "Not from the stars..."
We worked the sonnet line by line to check and uncover its meaning. We observed that the initial thought "Not from the stars" connects to the beginning of line nine "But from thine eyes" and the speech between is elaboration or qualification of the initial thought. We observed that the speaker begins in humility and then in the final stanza addresses the subject. As Nomusa spoke the sonnet to Leah, the impact on Leah was very clear at this point. We observed that the sentiment of this sonnet relates closely to the sentiment of Nomusa's speech from Mandela.
In this exercise we are looking and listening for honest and genuine speaking. These sonnets are generally intimate in their nature and have a force that comes from simple intention and clear thinking.

Leah worked with sonnet XXVII (27) "Weary with toil.."
She began seated on the floor, then spoke to Tenika as if leaving the GA cubicles at the end of a long day. As Leah continued to work simply talking to Tenika, the speech became more contained, simple and focused. Leah then spoke to an imaginary subject before, after first making an internal connection with the subject. The inner work clearly informed the outer work with compelling, clear and direct speaking. We saw that the sonnet is structured as one long sentence concluding just before the final couplet. We also saw that this sonnet suits well Leah's own personal style and sense of humor. Sonnets require that fill them with our true selves. "Animation" means "give life to". In this sense, the more we pour ourselves into the text, the more of our life we give it and the more animated it becomes.

Cynthia worked with sonnet XXIX (29) "When, in disgrace with fortune..."
We discovered a typographical error that greatly changed the meaning of line three: "deal" was replaced with "deaf". We noticed again that the sonnet was well-suited to the speaker, connecting with Cynthia's deep faith and world view. We also noticed the length of phrase. This sonnet is one complete sentence with two thoughts defined by semi-colons. The overall movement of the sonnet mimics the image the writer uses of the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth. As Cynthia continued to work this sonnet, we saw her likewise arising.

A note about punctuation: the grammatical rules of Shakespeare's time were not as standardized as they are for us today. Spelling and punctuation were much more fluid in the hands of the poet. The punctuation we observe can be thought of as musical notation, indicating tempo, rest, full and partial stops and so on. The punctuation of Shakespeare's texts are sometime disputed and often amended by modern editors and so it is not easy to determine whether we are dealing with original punctuation or something added at a later date. For this reason it is useful to compare various editions of the texts and to chose the grammar that best serves your interpretation and own aesthetic sense.