Sorry I'm a bit behind by a few days. I've gotten Mike Dunstan's and Michael Dacre's contributions at the beginning of this week. Regarding these, here follow some thoughts of my own--if some one else has already stated these or I've missed some one else's ideas, sorry. But some thoughts about what the two M.D.s said.
NEVER ASSUME -- START WITH GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
I more or less agree with most of what Mike Dunstan and Michael Dacre said in the first two e-mails I've gotten from the debate. But for Michael Dacre's one plea, that things be SPECIFIC RATHER THAN GENERAL, I would disagree with that sentiment. For the moment, I think we should stay with the general and not get too specific too soon.
If Michael is saying, which I think he is, let's be focused on exactly what we are talking about and why, rather than establish strict definitions first, then fine. What he says rings quite true after his first few paragraphs.
The whole insistence on strict definitions worries me, and Mike Dunstan clearly showed why. To become too specific too soon, and to have those delineations divorced from any real context, means we risk become short-sighted, myopic, and narrow-minded.
As one arts administrator reminded me years ago, when doing a research project, "Definitions are a problem. Some minds like rules and boxes--you have to acquaint yourself with the rules and stay in those boxes."
Defining things too soon, too narrowly, too quickly can create rules and boxes--or as Harold Rosen pointed out at our AGM, they can become orders, and those who wish to have power, or authority, or whatever patrol those borders and stifle real debate and creativity.
So far we are debating within a rather small, enclosed group. Mike says we are often guilty of using the term 'tradition' rather too loosely. I also think we are rather too free in making assumptions that everyone understands what we mean. Not just within the storytelling community, but with society at large. If we have a specialist knowledge or understanding of what storytelling is, how it works, what effects it has, it is too easy for each of us (we are all guilty of this too, myself included) of revelling in the role of the expert.
If we do this thing too often-- among ourselves or with those who don't eat, think, breathe and sleep stories all the time--then we run the risk of being stereotyped, of creating clichéd storytelling, and, most sadly, putting people off storytelling forever just when we want to bring them into it.
And we do want more people interested in storytelling, and knowing something of it. I am always sorry to hear professional storytellers fear newcomers trying to 'take over' work....that is not why the SfS was created, to give credence to new tellers. It was created to bring tellers and LISTENERS together, to widen the base so that more storytelling could go on. To create a demand for work, there must be more listeners and more ways of expressing --more contexts for--storytelling.
Therefore while we continue this debate, on "specific" area we should focus upon (to take Michael Dacre's request) is the realm of the listeners. How do listeners' define storytelling? How does the general public view it?
Whatever definitions we had before we became full-time enthusiasts, we carried those meanings into the new ones we hold now. That does not mean the public has travelled with us. Nor does it mean the public is wrong. The audience is always right--one must start with the point the listener is 'at'.
That to me is the essence of successful storytelling--the magic that can happen when teller and listener connect, no matter how adverse the situation is for telling.
In workshops for beginners I often run an exercise, as I'm sure many do, where people pair up and tell each partner a story. I always stress is an experiment, there is no right or wrong. It's just 'having a go', 'seeing what happens', etc. After the first, brief telling I ask how many thought they were TELLING a story when it was their turn. Usually less than half raise their hands. Then I ask how many thought they HEARD a story when it was their turn to listen instead of tell. Normally 90% or more of the group raise their hands. So more people perceive a story when it is TOLD to them as the listener than when they are the teller.
Audiences know when a story is good or bad, when they like it or do not, when it is a good storytelling or a bad situation. But they don't have to have a strict definition to let you know what they think about the storytelling.
It is much the same when going between cultures or between disciplines to explore storytelling ('traditional' or 'revival).
For example, storytelling in America has certainly evolved with a style of its own, and its own infrastructure and jargon. I have seen American tellers come over here, expecting the same sorts of venues, formats for festivals or clubs, or terms to be exactly the same as in the States. Yet much as storytelling shares from one culture to another, the nuances and subtle changes can become the focus for a definition and even a destructive argument.
Another example about differences of understanding came up when I was doing another research project. We had to define Irish storytelling for the VAC report on the current state of the art in the country. Three or four folklorists and one literature officer in the arts council were quite strict about what storytelling was and should be and what it wasn't. And it wasn't young or middle aged people, with middle class backgrounds and lifestyles, telling stories they had learned from books or tapes or similar 'revival' tellers in libraries and arts centres. It had to be old folks, telling in Gaelic, in pubs and by firesides in cottages in the wild west. They claimed those 'old boys' never went to festivals nor wanted to perform in libraries or arts centres.
And when I interviewed those ancient tellers in the Gaeltacht they indicated they were delighted to tell stories in modern venues--that the old venues, the old contexts, no longer existed. And they had, by and large, appeared at festivals all over Ireland and some, too, had performed in Britain or America.
Similarly, if I asked a member of the general public in Ireland what was a traditional story, or a good story, was that man or woman would usually describe a yarn, an anecdote, a joke--something believable, relatively modern. A tall tale, an urban myth, a bit of gossip, recent political history, a ghost story from recent times. If I asked a folklorist, it generally had to be something in Irish Gaelic, handed down through a family. If I asked an American man or woman what a traditional Irish story would be then they would describe leprechauns. And if I asked some one in Britain, quite often they would describe stories about Fionn McChumaill or Deirdre or Midir and Etain....stories that the folklorists would recognise except they assumed the tales would be told only in Gaelic. English enthusiasts often seem to hold the assumption that because English storytelling enthusiasts can find such stories in publications written in English.
None of this means that storytelling had died off, or that one group had the 'right' definition and the others the 'wrong idea' of what storytelling was.
What it means is that every one has pre-conceived perceptions. We must be aware of what our own are, and strive to learn and remember what other's notions are.
So we musn't assume everyone understands every definition or term or situation we use to state what traditional storytelling is and how we support it, use it, or develop it, or popularize it. Nor must we assume that any thing we do agree on is the best answer, nor the only one, nor the final solution. If as Mike said we have created not a revival but a new art form using a content that is old or traditional, then that new form is still very very young and will take generations--centuries, eons--to develop.
Dr. Anthony Barrand, a folklorist and psychologist from Lincolnshire but long resident at a university in New England, defines tradition as that event or past time or activity, or the materials that provide content for such activities (stories, songs, music, dance, craft, etc.) which a community cannot remember nor conceive of time that such past times did not exist or happen and what is more important, they do not want to remember such a time when these things did not exist.
A rather awkward definition--I'm paraphrasing it badly. But for me it means that if we are going to define, or study, or practice, or create, or use 'tradition' and 'traditional art forms' then it is not just what the teller thinks, but also what the listeners think and, even more, what the general public think about it.
I don't know where that takes us but I look forward to catching up on the past three days' chat and the responses so far.