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Global Storytelling:
Report from Tenerife
Excerpted from an article first published
in Book List July 1999
By Nina Jaffe
The Bank Street Approach states that
children learn in interaction with their environment. Storytelling
can influence this interaction and can help children enter
the world of symbols — spoken and written — as they
become communicating members of their culture. In this report
on an international storytelling event, Nina Jaffe, author
and graduate faculty, recounts her experiences and their impact.
On the island of Tenerife, with its winding
roads and whitewashed houses with red-tiled roofs, in December
1998, storytellers, writers, and performers from Europe, Latin
America, North Africa, and the United States converged for
the International Festival Storytelling and Literature. The
festival, founded by director, dramatist, and storyteller
Ernesto Rodríguez Abad, offered courses in literature
and narrative, performances for school children, and evening
programs with featured performers from the Canary Islands
and other countries. The festival also had a Web site, which
drew many online visitors.
The Ideology of a Writer
The festival opened with an inauguration
ceremony and public interview with Ana Maria Matute, one of
Spain’s leading writers of fiction and children’s
literature. As I sat and listened to Matute’s words,
I was struck by the strength of her passion, her belief in
words, in people, and in the power of history when embodied
in its most human, personal terms — story. “Writing
is a form of protest, without compromise,” she said.
“The only true ideology of a writer is humanity itself.”
Themes for the week included the importance
of the spoken as well as the written word; the power of literature
to capture and inform a child’s imagination and sense
of self; the need to balance technology and electronic media
with the act and art of reading; and the enduring relevance
of the lessons and images from the world’s folktales,
which speak across generations, languages, and cultures.
As the first North American to participate
in the festival, I felt a responsibility to find stories that
would speak to the multigenerational audience and that I could
tell in Spanish. I opened with an Anansi tale and followed
with a Zuni story, a Hindu myth, a Chelm story from the Jewish
tradition, and a Spanish folktale. Since I sometimes needed
“instant translations,” audience participation became
a truly integral part of the performance — but a joyful
one.
Stylistic Diversity
Throughout the week, I was struck by the
diversity of performance styles and approaches to narrative.
Maryta Berenguer, actress, children’s book writer, and
educator, drew on contemporary Argentine literature and cultural
icons, as well as children’s songs, stories, and games.
Pedro Martín, a linguistics professor at the University
of Laguna, spoke with an almost languid informality —
weaving in tales told to him by his grandmother with literary
short stories, Canary Island folklore, and family history.
Ana Castellano, a writer and professional
storyteller from Madrid, reached into contemporary and feminist
perspectives as she gave her own sprightly retelling of Genesis,
then portrayed modern urban prostitutes as the ancient sirens
of Homeric legend. Khaled Kouka of Tunisia performed in a
highly physical, confrontational style, at times using the
French language, sometimes Arabic, and sometimes his own imaginative
dialect.
The Power of Storytelling
The audience was receptive to all tellers,
but they rose to their feet only once, during the powerful
poetry readings of Antonio Abdo, the founder of the festival,
and Pilar Rey. The two enacted in voice and gesture the words
of Canary Island poets, speaking out for liberty and freedom.
Franco’s regime ended some 23 years
ago, but the remembrance of that epoch was one of the strong
subtexts to the joy in language and freedom of expression
that informed each and every event. Celebrated as well were
Canary Islanders’ history and culture, which had been
largely repressed during those years under dictatorship. The
festival provided a way of saying “Never again!”
in a communal and interdisciplinary forum.
Antonio Lopez, a 30-year-old native of Gran
Canaria, was called on the spot to take the place of a storyteller
from Morocco, whose government had denied her permission to
travel. Lopez’s performance was pointed and direct, including
Spanish folktales, ghost stories, and an extremely humorous
version of “The Little Red Hen.”
I asked Lopez about his goals for the future.
“I suppose,” he said, “that I will never have
an exact goal — only that there will always be people
to hear me, because there will always be new things to communicate.
One of the things I am beginning to see and understand in
this work is that words are tools we can use to change the
world.”
Storytelling as an art form has always had
a strong and respected tradition in the Spanish-speaking world.
From rhyming toasts and improvised singing at late dinners,
to children listening avidly to stories in the plaza, and polished
evening performances, the festival was a testimony to an age-old,
culturally acknowledged love affair with language.
One afternoon I had tea with two members
of a grassroots organization called Taller Juglares, a group
committed to performing tales (often without pay) at schools,
libraries, and community events. Storytelling festivals and
public programs, as well as independent storytelling organizations
such as Taller, are gaining momentum in Europe and Latin America
as a conscious effort to counteract the cultural homogenization
that is the result of television, electronic media, and globalization.
I traveled half way around the world to
hear new stories, in another language, but also to realize
that the issues facing these communities are not far different
from our own. Like Schlemiel in the Chelm story, I had traveled
far to come to a place that is, in some ways, a parallel universe,
mirroring my own city, my own street, my own house. For stories
will only stay alive in our minds and hearts if we stand before
each other — time and time again — and tell them.
Find out more about Festival Internacional
del Cuento Los Silos
http://www.cuentoslossilos.com
About the Author
Nina Jaffe is an award-winning author, folklorist, storyteller,
and arts educator who is on the graduate faculty at Bank Street
College of Education. Her acclaimed retellings of world folklore
include The Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from the
Jewish Tradition and Patakín: World Tales of Drums and Drummers.
She shares stories and music with audiences in schools, conferences,
and festivals throughout the United States and abroad.
Book links:
Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from
the Jewish Tradition
http://www.bankstreetbooks.com/NASApp/store/
Patakin: World Tales of Drums and Drummers
http://www.bankstreetbooks.com/NASApp/store/
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