Just another normal day at work

Me: "Hello, Memorial Park Community Center, this is Csenge, how may I help you today?"
Caller (nice elderly lady): "Csenge! I got this figured out! You are from, which country again?"
"Um... Hungary?"
"Hungria!... My son's girlfriend is from China."
"That's nice..."
"So how is that for you?"
"Excuse me?"
"Being from Hungary. Do you miss your country?"
"I do. But I am having a great time over here too."
"Are you going back?"
"I don't know yet..."
"Are you married here?"
"No."
"That's too bad, I am sure you are a doll."
"Thank you...?"
"I need to talk to the lifeguards. Do you know Zsazsa Gabor?"
"Um...?"
"She was Hungarian too, right?"
"Yes she was."
"So you are like Zsazsa Gabor!"
"..."
"I would like to talk to the lifeguards now. What brought you to Tennessee?"
"I am studying storytelling."
"That is wonderful! I heard about storytelling before."
"Yes ma'am. I'll transfer you to the lifeguard station."

I have no idea who it was.

Moral of the story: have a conversation with a nice stranger once a day. It's good for your health.

Popular Culture is popular - Ray Browne Conference 2013

I have been staling circles around the Popular Culture program at Bowling Green for years. I applied there under Fulbright (but ended up going to ETSU instead) and then applied again for a PhD this year (standing by for answer). Finally this week I got the chance to visit as a presenter at the Ray Browne Conference on Popular Culture, and see what the whole thing was all about.
I was not disappointed. Even though the Northeast blizzard took out most of the flights and resulted in several cancellations from people who could not get to Ohio, we still had a nice, eager and friendly crowd. I have had my fair share of conferences - archaeology, storytelling, folklore - but this was my first time visiting one that focused on pop culture. It was tons of fun, and very inspiring.
The opening evening included a buffet, a lot of talking and getting to know our fellow presenters, and watching a documentary titled White Scripts and Black Supermen, about black male superheroes in comic books. It was a very well done documentary that raised a lot of interesting points, and started a discussion that went pretty late into the evening. I was delighted to find out that everyone was pretty much up to date on comics and TV shows, which was a first within my conference experience (and I loved it).
The rest of the conference was similarly enjoyable. Dr. Brendan Riley's keynote was fascinating through and through, especially when he talked about how education (and the role of teachers) should and could change in the digital age. The other keynote speaker, Dr. Thomas Malaby, took us on quite the intellectual ride through the world of meaningful games. The panel that included three presentations of different aspects of digital fandom and copyright (Harry Potter, X-men and Alice in Wonderland) was also fascinating (and very well presented). The roundtable discussion on slash fanfiction was very professional and raised several interesting points (and we also heard things we did not want to hear, but that is the nature of fanfiction). I presented my own paper on role-playing and traditional narratives, and got interesting questions and a friendly audience. All in all, I learned a lot, I was inspired in many ways, and I also made a few new friends along the way (the Saturday night karaoke helped a lot with that).
Now I'm just gonna sit here with my fingers and toes crossed and wait for the admissions results.

Negotiating stories - a positive example

Once again I had an encounter on the field of "appropriate storytelling" - and this time I am happy to report that it was a positive experience.
I wrote about the preschool storytelling last week. It was fun, and I have been looking forward to the next one. This time, however, before the storytelling started one of the mothers pulled me aside to have a little talk about the stories I tell.
What happened was I told a porquoi tale last week. I have not even thought about it (in retrospect, I should have) that the families in the home school program are mostly devoted Christians, and as such, creation and "how day and night came to be" folktales are not the best choice to go with... anyway. So far it was not all that different from other issues about apporpritaeness that I have had to deal with before.
But, here comes the catch.
Instead of reproaching me, the lady very politely and openly explained to me her and the other mothers' concerns and the kinds of stories they find problematic. She was also very kind and told me that she really enjoyed my telling and she would like to continue bringing the kids every week. She apologized for making it difficult for me to choose stories, and she made it very clear she had nothing against my own personal world views, she just asked me to respect theirs. She inquired if I had stories that would fit their ideas, and finally told me that she was not angry in any way.
That, ladies and gentlemen, made all the difference in the world.
As a storyteller, it is my responsibility to adapt to my audiences. If you ask me nicely and politely, we can talk about mostly anything. I have hundreds of stories in my repertoire; I can choose the ones that will not offend you, but do not make me go out of my way either. We can compromise, if we can talk about it. If you respect my work, I will respect your wishes. If you do not care what my religion is, there is no reason for me to criticize yours either. If you open a conversation like civilized people, I am sure we can find stories that connect us both. And I will thank you for explaining to me what you think.
So this is exactly what happened. I went to my repertoire book (a million thanks to Elizabeth Ellis), carefully folded out the cover that says "What Would Loki Do?" (no need to upset nice people), and found some stories for the ankle biters that were appropriate. We had a great time, and we will continue to do so.

5 things kids don't learn without stories

I have been working with children for a while, as a storyteller.
(I know, what else is new, right?!)
Recently I have been thinking a lot about the things I experience with my elementary school audiences. These are in no way official results of some research; it is just what I see during my everyday job as a storyteller. As many of the kids hear less and less live storytelling, their perception of story is changing. Here are a few things I have been experiencing over and over again that I am pretty sure are related to the loss of storytelling.
(Side note: I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not blaming TV for all of this. I watch TV all the time. I think the issue is much more complicated, and TV by itself could not possibly be responsible for all the changes.)

1. "Read us a story!"
I have encountered this one with adults too, and surprisingly often. People seem to have forgotten the concept of 'telling' vs 'reading'.  Even if there is no book in my hand, or even in the room; even if I have been telling them stories for weeks now; even if I look them in the eye during the story; even if I explain to them that I am telling and not reading... they will still use the wrong verb. They call me a "story reading lady" more often than a storyteller, and they repeatedly ask me to "read another!"

2. And the record keeps on turning
Another sign that children are not used to a live person telling them a live story is that they don't look at me. They are so used to presentations where someone (or something - TV, audiobook, etc.) is talking at them that they feel free to crawl around, pick up coloring books, skip out for a snack, or just sit down with their backs to me (I have also seen this with adults). They just assume that the storyteller is no different from any other media; that I will keep talking as an uninterrupted background noise even if they are doing something else. I have to work hard to train my audiences that this is an interactive process; I make them answer, repeat, mimic, just to hold their attention until they learn better. Parents all over the world try to teach their kids the principle of "look at me when I am talking to you!", but it does not seem to be too effective.

3. Short attention span
Or, in some cases, virtually none. There have been smarter people writing a lot about this one, so I am not going to go into details. Enough to say that storytellers of old would never get away with three princesses with the kids of today.

4. Is this story true?
On a more closely story-related note, there seem to be some deficit in telling truth and story apart. Kids don't seem to grasp the idea of a "fairy tale" (and I am talking all the way up to middle school here). After every dragon, fairy or trickster they demand to know if it is true, and where it happened, and how I can prove that I am not lying to them. They are not at all willing to suspend disbelief. The story is either true or it did not happen. And they are way too young to understand the values of stories, even if I tried to explain.
On the flip side of the coin, this proves that they can't tell truth and fantasy apart. If I tell them I did fight a dragon, they will believe me. There has to be something in there about not listening to stories enough, but once again, this is just a hunch.

5. What happened to the dwarfs?
This is fairly on the nose, but kids know less and less of the classic tales. I have had an entire American elementary school class that had never heard of Jack and the Beanstalk, and most adult audiences can still be shocked with the tale of Bluebeard. Lately, I had a room full of 6-12 year olds who did not know what dwarfs are. I repeated the word a number of times, thinking it was my accent; finally the teacher intervened, saying "you know, little people!" and the kids' eyes lit up: "oh, you mean midgets!"

Piglets and princesses - Storytelling for preschoolers at MPCC

The idea was to start a story hour for the ankle biters while their older siblings are in Home School PE. We always have a bunch of little ones toddling around in Tuesdays and Thursdays, and as a storyteller, that seemed like a wasted opportunity for telling. So we put up a sign.
We had the first session today. At 1 pm I had one mother, one little girl, and no room to tell in (the usual place was taken up by a meeting). After some running and searching we found an empty activity room with chairs, but we decided to wait in the lobby until the other preschoolers showed up. In the meantime the little girl and I sat on a couch and she confided in me that she really liked princesses and love stories, so I told her the tale of the Queen who longed for snow. She was shy at first - kids always are when you tell to them one on one - but she smiled through her hands, and we had a nice little chat about snow, and flowers, and sweets. By the time the story ended the other families arrived, and we all marched down to the performing arts room, two mothers and five kids, for some more story time. It was four little girls, all about the same age, and one baby boy, sitting on his mother's lap very quietly, following all my gestures with great big eyes.
I concluded that five plus two is an ideal number for preschool storytelling. For one, the parents being there and listening just as intently as the kids makes an enormous difference. I wish that happened more often with storytelling sessions. The girls were very eager to copy whatever I was doing with my hands, and repeat the repetitive parts after me, so we had a nice little time telling La Noche del Tatu and the Squeaky Door together. The first time is always a calibration process: I learn the level of my little audience, and they learn my accent. For this group, it went really well. I am looking forward to next week.

MythOff USA 2013 - Getting our myth on!

Guess what?!
The 2013 MythOff season is off to an Amazing start! With a capital A! And possibly glitter!

Now that it is all said and done, I can confess that Cathy Jo and I took a gamble on this one. Since last time the Vault at Capone's (I mean, seriously, look at the name!) was such a fabulous venue to hold a mythical event in, we decided that even though this time around we needed to pay hard cash for renting it (smiles and pretty eyes only go so far, people), we were going to take that risk for keeping MythOff epic.
Boy are we happy we did it!

We had an honestly surprising turnout. For one, we offered a prize for whoever brings the most guests - it was won by a landslide by Griffin who brought in plus eight, all enthusiastic and eager for mythology. The prize was a pretty green paper butterfly - for social butterflies. Yes, we went there.

As for the menu of the day:

Round one - New Beginnings
Yours truly opened the evening with the Russian myth of Koschei the Deathless. I have been knee deep in this story for a few weeks now, and it was a lot of fun to tell it!
In the other corner was our very own Dr. Delanna Reed, in league with the Romans, who told us about the burning of Troy. It was an amayingly strong story choice, and a powerful delivery.
The prize for the round was a pear, that symbolized an apple (hobby shop was out of apples), that symbolized life and seeds and other symbolic stuff. I ended up winning the pear, and had tu endure all the puns that ensued. I didn't mind.

Round two - Elements
Joshua's element of choice was water - he told a mermaid story from Finland. It was beautiful and Joshua-like colorful, but at the same time seasoned with a tad of humor. Okay, maybe more than a tad. Whatever a tad is. It was fun.
After water, Griffin brought the fire with a part of the Nart epic (I feel a rap rhyme somewhere in there). He is a newcomer to the MythOff but I have known him for a long time as an awesome Scion game master, so I had no doubts he could pull off some mythical art. And he did. His telling was fun and quick and snappy and all-around a good time. He took the Burning Candle of Epic as his prize.

Round three - Music
We had a small mishap in this round: Marci who was supposed to represent China tonight got terribly sick and could not make it. Good think we are saturated in storytelling around here: we turned to our mentor Dr. Joseph Sobol who seemed to be willing to pull a myth out of his hat. Bringing in the Greeks he told Orpheus and Eurydice, and it was a touching and graceful telling if I have ever heard one.
In the other corner stood Cathy Jo, who had the luck of drawing South America from the hat. She told a Bolivian myth abouth the goddess of Chaos marrying the god of Order. Because that always works out peachy doesn't it? Cathy is a really good "adult" storyteller - which means yes she talks about sex in very sexy ways. She also talks about a lot of other stuff, in very smart ways. No wonder she got the Bluejay of Musical Mythology, which promptly ended up sitting in her hair.

All in all, we had a really nice cozy theme going on, with fire, broken marriages, locked doors, and people being chained to mountains. Because we only had 6 tellers everyone got 15 minutes - but maybe because of that exact rule of temporal freedom, nobody went over 13. We filed that away for future reference.

In-between stories and rounds people drank fancy cocktails at the bar, mingled, talked, and had a good time. It was a nice group of about 30, maybe 40 people, including a journalist who just happened to wonder in because the door was open. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the atmosphere, the myths, and the event in general.

All is well if it ends well: our generous and enthusiastic audience kept throwing money at us, so we did break even in the end, which, as our delightful host Brandon put it, is really a bargain at fifty cents a myth. Capone's was happy, the audience was happy, we were super happy, and the myths were epic.

Stay tuned for the sound recording in the next few days, I'm gonna go crash now.

Tell it for the kids

When I tell stories to children parents, teachers and other grown-ups often make a mistake: they think I am telling stories for them. Not to them, mind you, for many of them never actually listen - but for them. To entertain their children (for them), to educate them about values (for them), to give them an interesting experience of real life storytelling that is so rare nowadays. And because grown-ups think that I am doing all this for them, they make the mistake of thinking they can tell me what to do. Or what to tell.

Well, here come the news flash: I am not doing it for the grown-ups. Not for the teachers, not for the planners, not even for the parents.
I am telling for the kids.

I am telling for the kids who crawl up on my lap or sit next to me and listen with eyes wide like saucers.

I am telling for the kids who chatter at me in the middle of the story and they want to ask what the prince's name was, or where the kingdom is on the map, and most of all, they want to know if the story is true.

I am telling for the kids who come up with new solutions to the tasks in the story, and I can't help but tell it their way the next time around.

I am telling for the boy who told me the first time we met that he hated stories, and marched out of the room. I am telling for him because the next time I came in he stood in the back and nodded at the prince's decisions. I am telling for him because we sat by the bookshelf and talked about what kind of stories he would like to hear, and the next time, he stayed.

I am telling for the girl who came in wearing a tutu and told me she was a warrior princess, and she wanted stories where the princess saves herself.

I am telling for the little boy who listened for an hour with his mouth hanging open, and afterwards the teachers told me that was the first time in his entire life he had heard a story (because his father thought stories make boys weak).

I am telling for the girl who turned the Roman legend of Camilla into a story of eternal friendship, and told it back to me in a way that left me speechless.

I am telling for the girl who told me "You have inspired me to become a storyteller" and started telling stories to her classmates every break between classes. At the age of eleven.

I am telling for he kids who hear stories about children their age being shot to death at school, and they need to deal with that thought when they go to school the next morning. I am telling them stories about life and death, and I listen to their questions.

I am telling stories for the kid who told me he felt lonely just like the hero in the tale, and needed to hear the happy ending.

I am telling for kids to show them not all princesses are golden haired and blue eyed and perfect, and not all heroes are male. I tell of Antar the dark-skinned Arabian knight, of Aicha the monster-hunter, of the mother who raises the changeling child instead of tossing him into the fire. I ask the kids if they like dragons, and the Korean twins can explain the rest of the class why.

I tell for the stories. Grown-ups don't always understand. But the kids do.