May we flip the script on how live Storytelling can truly serve People over institutions once again.
After too many decades of exclusionary escapism and subscribing to colonial capitalist trappings, Storytelling organizations should be emboldened to play an active role in repairing past harms and unifying our Human community…
As a professional Teacher and Storyteller, and fellow Human being, I believe that Humanity itself is at a vital crossroads right now. We should be asking ourselves (as well as our fellow humans and humxns), every day, where we’ve fallen short over the years-decades-centuries… and what is currently owed, due to past harms. Because:
“Change moves at the speed of Trust.”
This volatile year has brought a much-needed proactive surge in social justice activism culture throughout the nation and world, and live Storytelling institutions (as well as their workers, vendors, and patrons) are being strongly urged to reckon with their past/ present patterns of oppressive and inequitable behavior, do some hard internal Work, and have the tough conversations surrounding the various types of inequity our nation is prone to. Their is a hope swirling in the collective ether that, moving forward, live Storytelling events won’t just be responsible for the creation of mere escapism; they will also be responsible for the just and equitable unifying of our Communities [in need] as well. So that All of Us can feel seen, heard, and safe.
And it’s okay to begin this restorative Work locally, while amplifying awareness for the numerous communities that ripple out past the sole one we individually reside in…
Not to erase the distance that separates us, but BRIDGE it.
Even though he is leaving this particular leadership position early next year, I believe that Arts leaders such as Michael J. Bobbitt (seen above) have the right idea…
May we proclaim, unabashedly (and then put our money where our mouth is): “ You are welcome here; you belong. And so does your Story. Furthermore, what IS your story? Let’s show the world that one, too.”
Problem is: our dominant culture’s grand love of capitalism, as well as other various -archies and -isms, has had Storytelling institutions on the ropes and chasing our own tails for so damn long that, out of necessity, they (and we) forgot how to care for PEOPLE. Especially the ones not in the building, which are oft the folx in more immediate need of care in the first place.
Once upon a time — before the grand rise of Euro-centric and “Westernized” systems of assigning capitalist principles to storytelling events — the act of STORY-TELLING was meant to (among other noble things) bring an entire community of individuals together as one unified spirit, under one sky, while also embracing and celebrating individual difference(s).
“I’ll teach you differences.” (King Lear, I.iiii)
I recommend taking in the above snapshot, and seeing how it lands on you in the moment, and then dig a bit further, by reading the illuminating and hopefully perspective-shifting article it’s from (attached above). How might you be able to adapt and apply these people-first principles to your own industry and life? I’ve been asking myself that question almost every day for about two years. I still don’t know if I have the answers, but the act of questioning has kept me consistently searching, discovering, and learning at a rapid rate about the type of person I want to be[come] for the rest of my life, as I move Forward with the rest of you.
Let us also remember that the final seven days of the year mark the celebrating of Kwanzaa…
Kwanzaa’s seven Principles are also very communally based, differing distinctively from Western colonist supremacy culture’s (or, put more simply, white supremacy) constant socialization of ‘Individualism.’
“I am We; I am because We are.”
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
~African proverbs
As a microcosm of our very nation, live Storytelling institutions in the US have been locked into a long-winded [his]tory of mediocre homogeneity… the telling of the same story over and over, reflecting and serving but a fraction of our country’s vast multicultural wealth.
After all, the “winners” are the ones who write the books of history, are they not? If this sentiment stirs up a visceral response in your body, then chances are, you are ready for this story — our Story — to change.
Did the research discussed in the above article surprise you at all?…
Do you believe it? Have you experienced it before? I do, and I have. It truly is something to write home about. Yes, of course we walk into every space with our own personal pitter-patter, our own distinct drum beat. But, live story-telling syncs us, links us to one another in a way that no other experience can.
I, for one, do not seek to share a heartbeat symphony with homogeneity — with merely a pulsating sea of upper-middle class white folx, who would rather sponsor the next drab, crusty production of Ibsen or Chekhov, or a Shakespeare play staged yet again in corsets and pumpkin pants (hold my earrings, please!) than the newer, fresher stories penned by the likes of Radha Blank, Larissa FastHorse, Branden Jacobs Jenkins, or Naomi Iizuka — to name but a very small handful. And this is coming from a big-time Shakespeare nerd, y’all! So even I myself seem to be touting gospel from a high peak on Mt. Hypocrisy. I seek to look inward and reckon with that fact consistently. At least his verse poetry was written to reflect the rhythm of a human heartbeat, though — so I’m working to take research from the above article, and leverage the Bard’s stories in a newer, more equitable, and community-minded way. Here is one example of how…
I hope you enjoy this short documentary video, ‘Waiting in the Wings: A Documentary About Theater & Community’ (created by a close friend and collaborator of mine, featuring my passion project, called the Bar[d] Party); it displays but one small way in which live storytelling can work toward the betterment of our human Community.
There was a time in my life, let’s call it between four and six years ago, when I was truly convinced that I was more adept at pretending to be other people than Being My Self. I actually came *this* close to full-on weeping in front of a group of enthusiastic high school Drama students, as I revealed this sentiment to them during a Q&A session one day. True story… but one for another time. The point is: I’ve been trying real hard these last few years to shift that personal identity paradigm — to inverse that human equation within myself. Because the Self is where the Work has to start and sustain from.
***And there is always more Work to do. There is always more to be learned about how we as Storytellers can serve People over institutions once again…
~OB.