Thoughts on the arts and development.....

Tonight, I attended a performance/talk given by Dovie Thomason, a Kiowa Apache and Lakota Sioux storyteller. The reason why I call it a performance/talk is because it was a storytelling performance, the flow was led by stories, but it was also a talk - a talk about her life, about multiculturalism, about being an indigenous person, about being human, about respect and our struggle to understand one another. Needless to say, I found it absolutely captivating. If we could learn something from storytellers, it would be that there is no good reason for giving talks that are dry and fact-filled and make your audience fall asleep. She talked about how her grandmother used to tell her a story instead of punishing her or praising her. She wouldn't sit her down and say "now let me tell you a story of what happens to little girls who do that" - she would simply say "come here baby girl - do you want some cookies? Did I ever tell you the story of how....." and never said a word about what Dovie had done, instead letting Dovie make the connections herself. If only more public lecturers knew how to lecture like that, we might get moving a lot quicker in this world.

After she finished speaking, we had the opportunity to ask questions. She had mentioned her involvement in the conflict resolution process in Belfast, and so I asked her if she could talk about how she got involved with that and what she did, since I'm very interested in the use of the arts for conflict resolution. She said that in fact, she really did very little more than listen. She and the others who had been called in to help made a rule, that no outsider could speak - they could only listen to what everyone had to say. And they heard many many important things that needed to be said: that people were tired of fighting, of bombs, of not being able to just date who they want and be friends with who they want. This surprised me at first - coming from my background I had, I guess, expected her to run activities with storytelling workshops or something goodness only knows what. But she went on to say, (serious paraphrasing here) "....We did a lot of just listening. Listening, providing an open space....I think that's something that artists often do, is leave a safe space open for discussion and talk...." WOW. Something so simple, and yet it had never really occurred to me in that light before. Artists do their thing in order to allow discussion to take place. Now this may not have been exactly what she was doing in Belfast or what she was even talking about, but that is what it meant to me. Yes, sometimes it is important to just listen. But in order for that to happen, a listening environment needs to be created. This can be done in a multitude of ways, I'm sure. One very important thing that I think could be done through the use of performing arts is the guidance of people who have something to say toward actually putting it in a format that can be heard, and giving it an opportunity to be heard - for example one experiment that I like to reference often, of a director who got a group of teen refugees together to put together a show about their experiences, of how they had become refugees and what their lives where like because of that and since. They were given the opportunity to present it to their peers and teachers as well as to the public and it was a very powerful means of communication - giving them the power to present these things to people who they had so often wished to communicate with and were just not able to. Because in day to day life it is very hard to tell your story so that people will simply listen and not talk. And sometimes that is something that needs to be done.

One book, one pen

So I'm on this email list called "Art for SED" (the SED standing for social and economic development). Recently a woman sent out an email about a storytelling conference she had been to that was absolutely amazing and inspiring. They had storytellers from all over the world and there were performances and workshops and just generally good opportunities to network and generate ideas and have a glorious time. In her email, the woman painted the scene of a woman from Africa who told a traditional story. Here is the story as she told it (only slightly edited by me):

"let me paint the picture
here she is up in front of us all in her beautiful African fabrics and
jewelery
she wove a story about a village in Africa
and in this village every child at birth was give one pen and one book
(she repeated these words over and over with every dance and song)
and they were not to use them until they reached 21
and when they got close to this age the wisest person in the village
would look at all the handsome men
and by their unique qualities choose the right book for them
BUT THERE WAS THIS YOUNG MAN, NAMED CHOOK, WHO IT IS BELIEVED COULD NOT
WAIT AND HE USED HIS PEN AS EARLY AS FIVE
HE WROTE ALL OVER THE WALLS
AND AND EVEN IN THE DIRT

(mean while she is dancing and singing and has the entire audience
totally captured right into the very centre of the story
and no one has any idea, at this point, what the story was REALLY
about)

then she goes on to tell us that as he got older he would write in
everyone's book that he could get his hands on
he became known as Chook, he who could not leave any hen untouched.

so he went on like this in the village until he had written into every
book

he had heard that in the commercial city you could get many books
so off he went
when he got there sure enough he could even hire books of all sorts
all colours and when he had written in them he could
go back, return the book, and get another and another
so this is what he did
until his pen just stopped one day
so he went to a book shop
the man in the book shop showed him how to put his pen between his to
hands and rub backwards and forwards and the pen started to work again

so he was so happy he went straight back to writing in the hired books
(all of this remember with dance and humour and play and song remember
'one book one pen' being repeated over and over)

he had written in all the books by now and he searched high and low
until he found this one book that was filled
every page he turned in this book had been written on
but this did not deter him, Chook, he who could not leave any hen
untouched.

so Chook, he who could not leave any hen untouched, wrote all over
the cover
of this filled book

BUT soon his pen began to drip red ink after only ever being a blue pen
he was very worried
went back to the book shop where the book shop owner told him he would have
to go back to his village
he could not stay in the commercial city any longer

he went home an abridged version
and no one wanted him there as they didn't want him writing in their
books again
eventually the grand mother came out and told him to come into her home
and he was brought back to health by her love and he didn't write in
any more books and went around his village teaching all the children

YES YOU GOT IT
'one book one pen'

all you men keep the lids on your pens and all you ladies keep your
books shut
and if you have to make copies use carbon paper."