CHRONICLE 16-17 ISSUE 09

12 The Chronicle January 31 - February 6, 2017 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community
Storytellers breathe life into characters
Tommy Morais
The Chronicle
Storytellers gather at the Northview Community Centre in Oshawa.
In small room at the Northview
Community Centre in Oshawa,
Kathleen Smyth tells her small
audience, in her own words, The
Silver Bell, an old Japanese folklore
tale.
In the story, a villager visits a
monk to borrow the church’s bell.
He always wanted to have that bell.
The villager is granted the bell
with the condition that he must
return it the following morning.
When the bell is missing, the monk
sends one of his own to search for
it. Both the villager and the man
sent by the monk are found dancing
happily and uncontrollably
around the bell. More people try
to return the bell to the church.
Same result. It is then implied a
never-ending human chain would
be formed, one where everyone
would be happy and dancing for
no particular reason.
“But what would be so wrong
with that?,” asks Smyth before
getting up and dancing herself,
beaming smile, prompting a few
in the room to join her.
By the time Smyth finished the
tale, it felt as if the entire room had
moved. Laughs were exchanged
and many praised the story.
People like stories. They always
have, likely always will.
Before the printing press and the
internet, stories were traditionally
passed on orally.
Like painting or sculpting, storytelling
is something of an art. The
Durham Folklore Storytellers certainly
believe so.
The storytellers consisting of
around 8-12 members on any given
meeting are mostly seniors. They
tell everything from fairy-tale stories
to real-life stories.
Every Thursday they get together
to share tales, poems, sometimes
singing and dancing their way
through a story.
Pictures are painted using only
words, relying on the listener’s imagination.
None of the club’s members are
particularly shy, but they do like to
turn off the light to get into storytelling
mode.
The storytellers will often
change their voices, altering tone
and pitch when necessary so as to
breathe life into the characters that
lie within the story.
“One thing I find is the voices
just come out. I told this story in
a British accent. The story made
me do it. It just happens, this particular
story chose me,” says Kathleen
Smyth, public relations for the
Durham storytellers.
Enid DeCoe, treasurer of the
group, believes telling a story orally
is truly a special experience.
“What I do is I tell a story to
your eyes. I can tell a story just by
making eye contact,” says DeCoe.
“I may talk about a scarf, but I
won’t say what it looks like so you’ll
have to use your imagination. We
all see different things, that’s part
of the beauty of storytelling.”
How does one become a good
storyteller? With time and practice.
“It’s like when you write or act, it
takes a long time,” explains storyteller
Heather Whaley. “You become
less inhibited about telling.
Once you become connected to it,
you tell the story.”
The same story can often be
found in different cultures, each
with twists that make them unique
to their geography.
“You’ll read a story and you find
out versions of it exist in different
cultures,” says group chair Irene
Johnston.
“It’s fascinating.”
Every member of the group has
a unique story about how they became
storytellers.
A few were told stories by their
parents and developed a taste for it.
Others took storytelling classes
later on in life.
Some have always had it in them.
“I was a kid in India at a party
when they told me to take care of
other kids. I was as small as them.
We had no TV back then if you
can imagine that. I started telling
stories. Then I would do it on Saturdays
and kids and adults would
gather,” says travelling storyteller
Summi Siddique.
Members of the Durham Folklore
Storytellers encourage different
ways to tell a story; using a
traditional talking stick, alternate
voices, dancing, the list goes on.
Above all, they like to tell stories.
Regardless of the method used, the
Photograph by Tommy Morais
group unanimously agrees on one
thing: there is no one correct way
to tell a story.