I can’t remember where I first learned that. I know Marilyn Torres has talked about it, but I don’t think I heard it from her first. I couldn’t help but think about how storytellers move energy as I reflected on the annual evening concert of the Three Rivers Storytelling Festival.
This year’s concert was held in a nice wood-paneled meeting room in the Prince of Wales Hotel in Athlone. The concert featured three professional tellers and several new tellers.
The professionals were Jack Lynch from Dublin, Susie Minto from Longford, and Liz Weir from Cushendall. The new tellers were students of mine and Liz Weir’s.
I was the emcee and welcomed everyone, gave them a little background on the Three Rivers Festival and asked them to turn off their cell-phones. Here’s how the evening flowed:
Jack Lynch was up first and he told his version of the mythic tale of Finn and Sadb.
Next was my student Jamaica Popejoy telling “One Wish,” which she learned from a published version by Liz Weir.
Becki Coleman, another of my students, followed with her original poem “There Were Fireworks.”
Susie Minto then came up and told a story for the solstice that she learned from Stanley Robertson in Scotland. The story is about, amongst other things, how every 50 years on the summer solstice the trees pull up roots and dance and drink at the river.
Liz Weir closed out the first half with Crawford Howard’s poem “St. Patrick and the Snakes.” She followed it with a folktale.
We took a short break, and then Jack started off the second half with one of his original stories, “The Yo-Yo Cody.”
My student Evea Morrow followed with her version of “Eithne the Bride.”
Aspen Ott, another of mine, told “The Boy and the Pooka,” which she found in Batt Burns’ new book, The King with Horse’s Ears.
Liz Weir’s student, Brendan Nolan, told a true story about an unfortunate neighborhood incident and its consequences.
Ashlee Chapman was the last of my students to tell. She told her version of “The Fairies Dancing Place.”
Liz Weir closed out the concert. First she told one of my favorites about an unusual encounter on a dark night. She finished with one of her signature stories, “The Fisherman and the Baby.”
It was a very successful concert. The stories were, across the board, well chosen and well told. It was especially great for me to see my students tell so well, and to be congratulated by their audience. Another treat was to hear my colleague, Barry Vaughan, laughing his head off while Jack Lynch told his second story.
But back to moving energy. I was talking about the concert with Sara Williams, a young writer who came to Ireland specifically to attend the festival. She received a special grant to come as part of the completion of her baccalaureate. I was telling her my perception of how differently the three professional storytellers occupied the space and moved the energy of their stories. It has a lot to do, of course, with their physical presence, bodily movements, and gestures that give the images in the story substance.
When I’m listening I like to blur my eyes slightly and pretend I’m seeing an infra-red movie that shows how the air is moving, different colors representing different temperatures. Jack, especially in his second humorous story, moved the air with a light hearted, rolling presence that suited it. Susie’s energy, as she embodied the movement of the trees was graceful, sweeping, and horizontal. Then, when Liz told, she pulled the focus up vertically, tall and straight, and brought the audience with her. It reminded me of a Morris Louis painting I saw at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Here’s an example of his work. Maybe it should be re-titled “Storyteller as Sentinel.” 
From the top the pictures are of Becki Coleman, Jack Lynch, Susie Minto, Jamaica Popejoy and Liz Weir, Evea Morrow, and Ashlee Chapman. I took the photos of Susie and Evea. The rest were taken by Sara Kirby. Click on the images to see them larger.
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