An opening statement - towards a performance around gender

In every story I tell, indeed in every episode of every story I tell, the decision as to how to represent the characters’ relationship to their gender is posed.  It is never unproblematic.

I have realised that you cannot just let stories ‘speak for themselves’; you are always, as a storyteller, making decisions and editing; you hold power as the one in control of the narrative and with this power comes responsibility.  This is particularly so with young audiences growing up in a world of towering gendered performativity, hypersexuality, girlification, pornification, competition, scrutiny and judgement.  The vulnerable young people I work with are lightning conductors for these difficulties, perhaps extreme sufferers of their impact, but nonetheless they highlight issues of relevance to all young people.  They have to come to terms with, accept or reject the strictures of 21^st century gendered life. 

My storyteller’s decision of how to represent gender is thus paralleled by young people’s equally constant decision matrix as to how to perform their own gender, what relationship to hold to it.  This is something I can show dynamically in a storytelling performance.

The performance should show different ways of being a woman / a man.  It should move towards allowing the audience to get some critical distance on society’s gendered expectations – to externalise things that feel like tumultuous internal pressures.  It should (perhaps above all) show the story-ness of these stories – that the characters’ relationship to their gender is a decision made by the storyteller and can be told other ways. 

A new year's moment of 'breathing in'

I think one of the risks with practice as research in applied arts is that you can end up spending much of your time doing stuff (facilitating, storytelling, leading workshops - and all the related preparation and reflection) and less time learning from how others do stuff.  Your own practice can take on a primacy that might be dangerous. 

Thus at this point, after a very busy 2014, I feel the need to regroup, backtrack, and contextualise my practice in various ways. 

For example, although I am working in secondary education, I have hardly ever witnessed a 'normal lesson'.  I don't really know what pedagogies are habitually employed by teachers - I make deductions and assumptions based on staffroom chat and official National Curriculum policy.  How can I know then in what ways pupils experience the sessions I lead as different?  And most particularly, how do I know what modes of communication dominate between teachers and pupils, and whether storytelling is one of them?  So over the next few weeks I am going to spend some time in the English Department, just observing teachers' practice, helping out a bit where feasible.  And to get a bigger picture, I am going to meet with one of the programme leaders of initial teacher education at the University of York. 

I hope to gradually get a better sense of:
* whether and how storytelling (in the widest sense, as a mode of communication) is already employed in secondary teaching;
* whether it is counter-cultural or supportive of currently dominant pedagogies.
(Behind the second question is a shadow question: is 'pedagogy' even a salient concept for teachers in these days in which they are increasingly trained 'on the job'?  And thus, by what roads could storytelling be further explored and introduced?)

The same 'breathing in' and contextualisation needs to happen on other fronts too.  So in the mental health setting I work in, for almost the first time I will be joining in some sessions led by the professionals who work there, as a participant, rather than leading sessions myself.  And in my research for a performance around the idea of gender in adolescence, I will be visiting a group of 16-18-year-old youth theatre students to plumb their expertise on the subject - through drama of course. 

Practice as research is a demanding discipline - you're a pendulum ever swinging. 

Surfing the performance spectrum

I get storytelling vertigo, sometimes, these days.  In the course of a week I tell stories to a group of three 14-year-olds who are playing with clay and interrupting me continually to tell me what ought to happen next; to a roomful of silent, wide-eyed, troubled, inscrutable adolescents whose reactions are unpredictable and momentous; to an adult audience in near darkness in a theatre with lighting and staging. 

Any storyteller would recognise this.  It’s what Mike Wilson (1997) calls the ‘performance spectrum’ – from very informal, almost conversational storytelling at one end, to ‘performance storytelling’ more akin to theatre at the other.  But the cramming of my current working life with all of these varieties on top of each other makes me keenly aware of their different ethos and demands. 

More than that, it maybe makes me uncomfortably self-aware, of my own habits and processes.  Putting together a performance with musician colleagues recently, I was almost paralysed with embarrassment when we rehearsed – perhaps because the whole idea of ‘rehearsal’ is anathema to ‘everyday storytelling’.  ‘How will you end that one?’ ‘Emmm….I’ll probably repeat the thing about the mountain and cock my head to one side…’ All my tricks and tropes became evident; I had to give them reliable cues to start playing; they helped me shape the stories to make certain points; I squirmed when they heard the same lines repeated each time.  We found ourselves incapable of any banter between stories, because this highlighted the lack of spontaneity in the rest of the show.  

It was easier to accept the fact that this was, essentially, a scripted performance, and remove any pretence of its being otherwise.  When we did so, I was able to relax, and welcome their (extremely helpful) input, which enabled me to present something more crafted, more careful than I usually might.  But I feel there is an elusive form, beyond my current abilities and instincts, where the planned and spontaneous elements of a storytelling show are more synergistic.  Where the audience still come away with a feeling that they helped create the show, and have been given the stories to keep.  I can think of a few performance storytellers who manage this, but not many. 

This was all at the forefront of my mind while I was reading Walter Benjamin’s essay, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’.  Benjamin suggests an interesting way of looking at this spectrum within artforms, according to how reproducible and transportable they are.  He points out that the original function of art was primarily ritualistic – it had a cult value, even if (or because) few people ever got to see it – like the engravings high up on the walls of the Minster.  I think you could understand a ‘traditional’ storytelling event like my small gatherings of teenagers to be of this kind, in a secular sense – it is unrepeatable; you have to be there to bask in its ‘aura’.  Its social or ‘cult’ value is perhaps of greater significance than its artistic quality.

As technology developed so that art became gradually more reproducible (e.g. woodcuts, lithographs), it became correspondingly less sacred and more about exhibition and artistic value.  And its form started to change to meet the different demands of exhibition.  Here I think you could place ‘performance storytelling’.  Virtuosity is important here; ‘authenticity’ in the sense of uniqueness is much less so.  There is an acceptance that the same performance will be repeated elsewhere; it is not about the particular set of people gathered here to listen today.

Benjamin suggests that as art becomes ever more reproducible (and of course he could not foresee the digital revolution), the form changes once again.  Artistic criteria diminish in importance again, and the primary purpose becomes political – it’s about communication, voice, participation.  And here I think you could locate most of digital storytelling, and a lot of what drama practitioners mean when they talk about ‘storytelling’.  No wonder that when people profess an interest in ‘storytelling’, it’s not obvious what they mean without probing a little further.  It is in fact several different artforms.  When I say I feel vertiginous from surfing this continuum within storytelling every week, it’s because I’m sliding along a scale which has big bumps along it. It demands that I reset my sense of purpose and role.

As a postscript: Benjamin’s comments on film in this essay cast some light on my discomfort in rehearsals.  The close-ups, slow-motions, the perfect detail of film allow a testing and examination of an actor’s performance, while alienating him from his own body.  The absence of an immediate audience against which to form his performance make him perform a language of gesture in a kind of vacuum, in which each of his gestures are subjected to scrutiny which is not social, but technical.  Likewise, informal storytelling allows huge latitude for idiosyncrasy and habit – the usual inconsistencies and inaccuracies of face-to-face communication can pass unnoticed, or are just taken in subconsciously as in everyday life.  Whereas performance storytelling under a spotlight, with the audience removed by poles of light and darkness, forces the performer to consider the effect of each gesture, analyse his own habits, and commit to them in advance.  Perhaps this is why it leaves me feeling exposed and inadequate – and also why it feels like a rigorous discipline I should not shy away from!

The devising process and storytelling

I had a really useful chat today with the drama practitioner who leads the acting group for teenagers with additional needs, which I have been working with for six months now.  The group has been using a devising process based on myths - some brought by us adults, others by the young people themselves.  Their responses to these myths brought out themes which the lead practitioner wove together into a script - no easy task!

We reflected together on what storytelling has brought to the group - already fluent in many theatre skills.  Working with stories including Romeo and Juliet, Dracula, Baldur and Loki, Llew Llaw Gyffes, Sho and the Demons of the Deep, individuals in the group found they were good storytellers, able to hold an audience.  The stories were 'meaty' grist to the mill of their drama work - allowing them to bring out challenging themes such as betrayal, dependent love, bullying, identity, jealousy, revenge...


The resulting play needed a setting of suitable grandeur - also devised by the whole group:

Smooth stones

Is storytelling 'high art' or 'low art'?

I spend such a lot of time trying to work out what my research is really about. 

Here's a potted history of storytelling:

Once upon a time...it was a folk art, a 'grounded aesthetic' (as Paul Willis would call it) not respected by the art establishment.  It was sometimes conservative, sometimes subversive, sometimes brought communities together, sometimes kept them apart.  Teenage tellers never told it quite the same as their elders, sometimes they didn't even allow their elders in when they were telling.  It was whatever people needed it to be.

The times they were a-changin'...and it became a means of resistance.  One of the many cultural spin-offs of the 1960s.  A rough-edged crusader against high art, elite culture and economic power.

It 'sold out'?!?! It became too good for the arts establishment to miss out on.  It appeared everywhere and became zeitgeisty.  It was best served with a glass of wine and some appropriate world music. 

Time to give it back? It's possible that my whole PhD is about finding whether teenagers want it back, whether they want to make room for it in their 21st century 'grounded aesthetic' or whether it's already there. 

I think, more likely, it's about finding common ground between forms of storytelling flowing up from the 'ground' and down from the 'air'. Finding a 'new vernacular' which works for a given group of young people and 'feeding' or 'seeding' it with stories from the high/low tradition of storytelling while they are getting going (which is my contribution). 

Willis (in Common Culture, 1990), along with most cultural theorists after him, feels that commercial cultural commodities - film, magazines, TV, music, computer games, consumer culture - have stepped into a breach which late capitalism and 'High Art' have left empty.  Work no longer exercises most young people's creativity and skill. 'High Art' comes with its meanings already bundled into it, and repels young people, he says.  Consumer culture and media give them more to play with and transform into their own meanings - so capitalism is the cure for the disease of capitalism. 

Well, maybe so and maybe not.  Storytelling is never some ethereal thing existing independently of the economy - far from it - but I think it would be a very welcome additional presence in that same breach.  Always bearing in mind, it needs to be an 'open' kind of storytelling - a 'writerly text' (thanks Barthes) - which has no specific designs on its listeners.

On my optimistic days, I think the respect now accorded to storytelling as a 'proper' artform might mean it could act as a special language for young people to articulate their perspectives to the adult world. 

Layering stories on stories

I have written before about Jack Zipes' suggestion that we not worry too much about what 'message' we are giving with a particular story - instead we should provide alternative versions of it and let them accuse each other.  His classic example is 'Red Riding Hood' - it could be the classic anti-feminist tale (little girls: stay at home and keep safe!) but providing both matriarchal peasant versions and modern retakes on it (e.g. Quentin Blake's - right - who 'pulls a pistol from her knickers') alongside the Grimm version allows young people to decide for themselves.  More than that - they get a distance and critical perspective on the story-making process itself, and start to be able to use it for their own purposes, and to critique society. 

I have gradually and painfully come round to this, having been reluctant to open stories up to such postmodern dissection.  Yet, Brechtian alienation and all that...I do know he is right.  My preference has been to develop workshops where, rather than presenting versions of the same story, I have told different stories within a similar structure, such as the 'hero's journey' - both mythical and contemporary true stories.  I have helped groups look for the similarities and differences between these and find a structure they can play with.  We've then created a character together, who in some way represents the group or its fantasies.  This character is then sent off on its own story, either by all the group together or each member individually.  These have been some powerful experiences for groups, and generated some tremendous stories.

But you never get to sit still for long in this research game.  On Tuesday I was privileged to attend a brilliant event at my university, York St John, organised by my supervisors Matthew Reason and Nick Rowe.  It was called 'Elusive Evidence' and focused on challenges of documentation and research in applied arts practice - that is, arts in social, health, educational settings.  Run as an 'open space' event, there was plenty of time to discuss with the many stimulating speakers.  One of these talks raised a question for me, which we later explored in discussion.

Olivia Sagan (of Bishop Grossetest University) spoke about the potential for doing harm with our work. It's always possible to see an intense response by a group, and assume this is a good and beneficial one.  Groups I have worked with have certainly produced strong, creative, moving work fed by stories - but might processes like the one I have outlined have risks as well?  Creating a marginalised character to represent a marginalised group of young people might be a horizon-limiting thing - strengthen the bonds between them but make them feel more cut-off from others.  Yesterday a group of 13-year-olds told me their character was 'quite happy living alone with his animals' and did not need to go anywhere or find new friends. 

What are the answers to that? I think Zipes would say, don't sweat it, give them another story!  Let it be a contrasting one which questions the last one.  It can be hard to escape from the 'hero's journey' myth in this age of Disney - find something else, let it be subverted.  And I think forum theatre practitioners would say: stick with it, but let the young people explore all the perspectives in the story, not just that of 'their' character.  Let them put their character in tricky situations.  Celebrate the conflicts in the story. 

Occasionally I have the instincts to do this.  I'll leave you with a great poem written by a bickering and rowdy group of Year 7s yesterday, inspired by the feelings of a cartload of plague victims travelling to their lodge beyond the city bounds.  The teachers and I managed to resist our temptation to smooth over the differences between them - their version of the story became a reflection of the many ways to see a bad situation:

We are divided into rich and poor

We are scared, terrified and shaking

Will we die, there is no cure

I heard we should cut the sores to release the pressure

People are fighting and stealing on the waggon

We should not steal or we’ll go to hell

Thomas Morton is praying for us

But who cares its our last day lets just have fun

In the moonlight we dance around  the fire to cheer ourselves up

 Why is god punishing us?

I don’t want to die

We’re missing our dear children

We did what we could for them

Left them food, look after to each other, stay hidden

I’m thankful they are still alive

But will they survive?