"New trad" storytelling as inclusion: Danielle Bellone visits Budapest

I have mentioned my dear Danielle Bellone on this blog before multiple times - she even guest blogged here once. I met her in the ETSU Storytelling program, where she wrote her thesis on "new trad" (new traditional) storytelling. She has been doing performances and teaching workshops on the topic ever since, and this year, we finally found a way to invite her to Hungary! Her trip was supported by the US Embassy in Budapest, and her events were an official part of the 2018 programming of Budapest Pride. Next to the Pride programs, the embassy also took her as guest speaker to other venues (such as a girls' leadership camp). It had been a long time dream of mine to bring Danielle, and her unique style of storytelling, to Hungary, and it was amazing to see it become reality.

Danielle presented her workshop at the 2018 FEST conference in Ljubljana (I blogged about this earlier), and then spent a week in Budapest, full of events and adventures. On the 4th of July she performed her one-hour storytelling show titled Pulse and Other Queer Heartbeats on a theater stage, as part of the Pride event series. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous performance. She told "new trad" tales like Soli and Panna (a creation myth featuring two goddesses) and Omar and Wendell (a tale about a hero who has to battle anxiety before he battles the dragon); re-told traditional stories such as a poetic Cinderella, a tragic Daphne and Aeola, and a beautiful, vivid Lindworm; she sang, she soared, she enchanted us all. I have heard these stories many times before, but I can't get enough of them. I love Danielle's eloquence, and the care she has for choosing the right words to paint the most colorful images in the listener's mind. Hungarian audiences were lucky to get to hear her.

On Saturday (incidentally, the morning of the Budapest Pride parade) Danielle presented a three-hour workshop for people who were interested in delving deeper into "new trad" storytelling. Just to recap: "New trad" stories are built from the elements of traditional stories (motifs, tropes, symbols, structures of folktales and myths), created for oral telling, passed along freely into the public domain, and they usually fill gaps in tradition that older folktales did not talk about. Apart from the obvious (LGBTQ+ identities and experiences), participants in the workshop had a whole lot of other ideas as well, about what gaps we should address; the list grew long, and contained topics such as "female friendship," "older heroes," "alternative family models," and "climate change." We also discussed the concepts of cultural appropriation, representation, and the fact that folktales have many layers, and why representation of diverse characters is important even though on deeper psychological levels tales operate as symbols of the self.
In the last hour of the workshop participants could begin working on their own "new trad" stories in pairs. I have taken Danielle's workshop before, and it never ceases to amaze me how many great tales can be born in such a short time, and how easily, naturally people settle into making up stories. The results, once again, were marvelous. There was a tale about an old woman and a middle princess ending a magical drought together by descending into the Underworld; two princesses kidnapped by a dragon who rescued themselves together; a squirrel who wanted to be human, but did not want to choose between being a man or a woman; and even a hedgehog mother, locked into a dark den with her nuclear family, who found a way into the sunshine, and the supportive friendship of other mothers. We even made a lovely story about Pride - I'm sure you'll hear more about that one eventually...

Both events had a moderate audience, but a whole lot of overwhelming enthusiasm from those who did show up. I was extremely happy to begin spreading the word about "new trad" storytelling, and starting conversations among Hungarian tellers about how tradition can live on and change, while still honoring the stories of old. The week flew by in a flurry of excitement, adventures, and stories. I hope everyone else also had a lovely Pride month!

A better way out: "New trad" storytelling workshop by Danielle Bellone

A year ago I hosted Danielle Bellone as a guest blogger, and she wrote a marvelous post about "new trad" storytelling. She is a dear friend of mine, and a former classmate from the ETSU Storytelling MA program. This year, the BGSU LGBT Resource Center featured her as a performer during Coming Out Weeks, and she brought her "new trad" tales and workshops to our campus. It was an amazing experience, and a perfect addition to the program. I took the workshop twice, and you can all be jealous of me now.

Danielle presented her workshop, "After happily: Using 'new trad' stories for celebrating diversity", twice this week - once for the LGBT+ community, and one for the general public. We talked about what makes storytelling important (since the participants were non-storytellers), and then discussed problems of cultural appropriation with traditional tales, as well as topics that are usually missing from folklore. Beyond LGBT+ representation, people also suggested topics such as male-female friendships, diverse body types, differently abled heroes, miscarriage, the Internet, and even student loan debt. Danielle then introduced to us the idea of "new trad" stories - tales that are made up, using symbols and tropes from traditional tales, to fill in these gaps in the oral tradition (see her post, linked above, for details). Her presentation was concise, on point, and very inspiring, not to mention spiced with a lot of humor and genuine conversation. Once we were armed with our newfound knowledge of "new trad", she allowed us to break out into smaller groups, pick a topic, and start crafting a tale. I was amazed at the ideas people came up with; everyone was bustling with creative energy, and instinctively reaching back to folklore to pick motifs and symbols to use. We left both workshops with the bones of stories I truly want to develop into performance. People were inspired and bubbly as they walked out.
(I am especially fond of our idea of telling the sad tale of student loan debt through the story of a school of magic, where students pay for spells by turning into statues for extended periods of time, serving as cup holders and balcony columns for wealthy wizards... until something terrible happens, and they are all needed to protect the kingdom).

Apart from the two workshops, as an illustration of "new trad" work, Danielle also brought us a performance titled "A better way out: An evening of queer storytelling." Every time I hear her, I am amazed at her artistic range: She weaves song, slam poetry, adaptations of traditional myths and folktales, and "new trad" stories, into a wonderful set that is full of color, and wonder, and her endless love for the flavor of words. My great favorite of the set was the "new trad" myth of Soli and Panna, two women in love creating the Universe. She used it as an example in the workshop, so I got to hear it three times in two days, and each time I found new gems in the way she worded it, and each time I loved it more. Danielle is the kind of person who, when listing animals in Creation, uses words like "pangolin" and "limpet" and "sugar glider" instead of plain old "tigers and elephants." Her prose is poetry, and her poetry is lively storytelling.

"New trad" storytelling is an emerging genre, and it is vital for oral tradition to keep moving forward. Danielle Bellone is blazing a trail with her work. Pay attention. Follow along. Be inspired.

Guest Blog: "New Trad" Storytelling (by Danielle Bellone)

Today, for the first time in Multicolored history, we have a guest blogger!

My dear friend and former comrade in the Storytelling program, Danielle Bellone (I wrote about her fabulous Finest Hour performance on the blog), is working in the new field of "new trad" storytelling. Since it is a fascinating topic, I asked for her take on it, explaining what "new trad" is, and why it is important. 

Read it in her own lovely words!

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It’s a Tuesday night. I am feverishly sorting through stacks and stacks of collections of folk and fairy tales. Calvino, Andersen, Carter, Beckwith, Ragan. I even have The Russian Secret Tales and Pissin’ in the Snow, two collections of naughty stories from Russia and the Ozarks, respectively, not meant for innocent ears.  Surely in these risqué collections I will find something close to what I’m looking for. But no! There is nothing! Not in the Gumbo Ya-Ya, not in Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. I slam closed another book, and wail my despair up to the gods of storytelling,

WHERE ARE ALL THE GAY FOLK TALES??

My journey to new trad storytelling started when my friends Jenny and Marisa asked me to tell a story at their wedding, I searched and searched through tomes of folktales. I nearly settled on a Russian folktale called “The Magic Ring” for its ring imagery and happy ending, but I realized that in order for me to tell it comfortably, I felt the need to do a feminist rendering of the story, and it became more about politics than love. The more I searched for love stories among folk tales, the more politicized I felt, until every story I touched felt more about confronting the patriarchy than the joyous celebration of a union. And every love story I found with two same-sex characters seemed to end in suicide, gender-swap, or one of the lovers being turned into a constellation. If I wanted a lesbian love story that didn’t end in tragedy, I was going to have to make it myself. And once I did, I realized how hungrily I had been waiting for a story of women, and only women, loving and creating.

Inadvertently, I had stumbled upon the world of new trad. The term “new trad” has been in circulation in the realms of poetry and architecture for a while. It’s short for “new traditional” and refers to the practice of using traditional pieces in new ways. It’s the same in storytelling: new or original stories that are made of traditional pieces. They do not reinterpret classic or traditional tales. However, they do contain elements of traditional tales: there may be heroes, crones, dragons, enchantments, dark nights of the soul, and other familiar tropes, but it’s not just Cinderella with a cell phone.

By giving us the distancing mechanisms of folk tales, new trad allows us to storytalk about things that most folk tales don’t quite reach, either because they were culturally taboo or because they just didn’t exist yet. With new trad stories, a teller can address topics like interfaith relationships, social media, miscarriage, and massive student debt…topics that traditional folk tales usually don’t have a handle on. Or, as in my case with the lesbian wedding, we can tailor a story to an exact situation for greater relevance and authenticity. And we can do so without trampling on other cultures by wantonly changing their stories’ themes to suit our own motives.

So now, if you have the entire world of topics free for the crafting-into-stories, what would you tell? What stories have you been hungering for? 

Danielle Bellone is a storyteller, harpist, fabulist, poet, and native of Louisiana. She completed her Master’s in Storytelling at East Tennessee State University, and now makes her home in the strange hills of Austin, Texas. She was recently featured on the BYU Radio podcast "The Apple Seed," and was invited to perform at the National Storytelling Conference. Her work can be read in Indigo Ink's Modern Grimmoire, or heard in her storytelling album, Moon-Eyed Sister.