iy eae IN gE UL@Narch 2010 by Jonatha Hammer Wright [All rights reserved. No parts ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval eystem oF ‘transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise: or publicly presented, without written permission ofthe editor, To seek permission eontact Jonatha Wright, PO Box 562, Yellow Springs, OH 45387 Published 2010 by PRESTO & US Storytelling Publications, PO Box 962, Yellow Springs, OH 45387 Printed in the United States of America LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN PUBLICATION DATA Wright Jonatha Hammer 1944. ‘Team Up! Tell In Tandem! Storytelling Education specializing in telling stories in tandem (duet) 1. Storytelling 2. Education 3. Stories for tandem telling Library of Congress Control Number: 2009900082 Jacket & Book Design: Paachyah Lichtenstein, www indentmedia com, Cover Photos: Dennie Eagleson First Edition Printing, July 2010 ‘TEAM UPI TELL IN TANDEM!Unit 5 A: Traditional Tandem Teams Talk About Their Work Introduction: Editor Axticles “Two Heads, Better Than One?” by Tina Rohde and Colleen Shaskin, WonderWeavers “Scripting Stories" by Dennis and Kay Flowers Unit 5 B: Traditional Tandem Telling PLUS Introduction: Editor Atticles: “Duet Storytelling” by Panul and Leslie Conway “Tandem Storytelling and Music’ by Carol Connolly, Tales 'n Tunes “Telling Tailes in Tandem” by James “Sparky” Rucker and Rhonda H. Rucker “Temdem Storytelling: Nomrating in Two Voices” by Victor Arjona and Angel del Pilar “The TaleSpinners, Tandem Tellers” by Sue Alvarez and Christine Greenough, The TalleSpinners “Contan Dos: Two Telling” by Mayerlis Beltam and Fernando Cardenas Unit 5 C: Traditional Tandem Telling —in Two or More Languages Introduction: Editor “Tandem Telling in Spain" by Tim Bowley “Two Tellers: Two Languages’ by Margaret Read MacDonald TEAM UP TELL IN TANDEM! 107 108 110 113 123 124 126 128 130 139 146 148 153 154 156 159CONTAN-DOS: Two Telling Mayerlis Beltrén and Fernando Cardenas Translation: Paloma Dallas By Way of Presentation ‘The Corporacién Cultural NAVE in Barranquilla, Colombia was born out of an initiative by Mayerlis Beltran and Fernando Cardenas, professors of dramatic arts at the School of Fine Arts at the Universidad del Atlantico. NAVE, (SHIP) fuses acting and storytelling, focusing the work of the artists along this line of research. ‘The artists’ productions integrate stories from the oral tradition of Colombia's Caribbean coast with stories from the cannon of universal literature. They artisti- cally combine the stories with theater, music, and Caribbean humor, and their performances have toured throughout Latin America. About Our Work We have accepted the invitation of our friends Jonatha and Harold Wright to participate in this publication and speak about our performance work together. In addition to our experimentation with telling stories as a duo, we, Fernando Cérdenas and Mayerlis Beltran, have delved into the union of two performance arts: storytelling and theater. We recognize that the relationship between the two is a delicate topic. For some artists, the boundaries between the two are so great they are insurmountable; while for others, like ourselves, the so-called boundaries are almost imperceptible, so much so that at times we think they don't exist. We have decided to limit ourselves to describing the performance work that we do in the Corporacién Cultural NAVE. 148 ‘TEAM UPI TELL IN TANDEM!What Do We Do? Our way of approaching performance combines theater, storytelling, and all of the resources that these two arts bring with them. Staging a production with these characteristics requires more than selecting a text; it involves a process of adapting each text. We divide the text that we select into three categories: verbal narration, dia- logue between or among the characters, and text that can be represented through physical actions and images by the actors who are interpreting the characters. The process of adaptation is called theatricalization. It requires finding the theatrical in the way the text speaks about reality. The theatrical is related to a search for the dramatic in a theme or issue, and its effect on the stage. The theater refers to the aspects that can be adapted to the requirements for representation in a staged production. Once this step of the process is resolved, we must confront the practical work, which falls into two categories: the spoken text and the representable text. And there is still another concern when we are two storytellers on the stage: what does the second one do while the first is telling? To find a solution, we looked into the many functions of an actor, polifunctionality, that attribute someone possesses to the extent that they can be used for various functions at the same time, or can complete these functions independent of each other. The actor required for this kind of project has to be able to take on various roles, such as creating multiple characters, telling a story orally, preparing the stage, and interpreting a story using musical instruments. From this point on, this kind of actor will be called a multifunctional actor. At a basic level, the actor is the performer who uses the elements and instru- ments that set in motion the discourse of language on the stage. The actor is the subject of the story; this person narrates from his or her presence and existence. In addition to being a creator of characters, they must also fulfill the role of sto- ryteller. In order to differentiate between the characters and narration, we will some- ‘TEAM UP'TELL IN TANDEM! 149times use certain costume elements and props to represent each character. In other words, we create a convention by identifying a character with a given object; each time the actor uses a particular object, they will become the character as- sociated with that object, according to the convention that has been created. The polifunctionality of the actor is demonstrated in public view, complemented by a neutral space, as this is the appropriate space to make use of the actor's polifune- tionality. The neutral space is created when what is occurring on stage does not intervene directly in the narrative. We explore the resources of storytelling and the creation of characters, looking for how actor-storytellers tell stories from different perspectives, as narrators and also as characters and subjects of the story itself. Storytelling and Theater, a Duality As one can see in what has been described so far, Corporacién Cultural NAVE’s performance process has its foundations in theater techniques, the creation of characters and physical and verbal expression. But we also want to emphasize the resources that we have acquired through storytelling: an ability to construct: images verbally and to manage literary structures. We have acquired these re- sources from observing the work of other storytellers and the way they go about approaching performance, and it has allowed us to emphasize the relationship between the storyteller and the public. In order to create a performance that lies on the border between storytelling and theater, we find that elements related to the managing of the stage, the body, and the voice help our work as storytellers. We have also found that the resources of storytelling enumerated above enrich our way of doing theater. For example, the ability to manage literary structures is important in the theatlicalization or adaptation of the texts because in makes it easier to transmit a story's meaning. We have described the characteristics of the theater that enrich our storytell- ing work and vice versa. And even though we are aware of the differences between these two performance arts, we think there are also many similarities between them, and it is these similarities that form the foundations for our work. 150 TEAM UP! TELL IN TANDEM!For us, the most important similarity is that both storytelling and theater re- quire an actor and a public. As for the differences, the most important appears in Aristotle's Poetics, where he refers to the different forms of imitative arts: The difference between them is that in the first two cases these means [of language] are all employed in combination, in the latter, now one means is employed, now another. These are the differences of the arts with respect to the medium of imitation. [1] In other words, storytelling and theater are both performative forms of imita- tive arts in which different means of language are used. The difference between them is what we study and what we combine on stage. So, we can conclude that in the productions that we have created so far, we have used diverse forms of language to tell an interesting story in a clear and simple manner. In reality, what interests us most is creating productions that are artistically demanding and in which we combine all of the resources and techniques that we can employ within a coherent esthetic. All of the aforementioned, perhaps a bit more or a bit less, is a rough outline of what we do, without pretending to indoctrinate or create a particular technique, but instead using the freedom that we have to create. At the end, we all have our own ways of doing things. As they say, there are many ways to skin a cat. [1] Aristotle. Poetics. Dover Publications: Mineola, NY (1997) Unabridged republication of SH. Butchens translation of the Poetics as originally published by Macmillan and Co., London, as part of the volume Aristotle's theory of poetry and fine arts in 1895. Corporacién Cultural NAVE. www.palimpalem.com/2/corporacionnave corporacionnave@yahoo.com TEAM UP TELL IN TANDEM! 151