Day 4

July 19
All Present

We began with a long discussion concerning story permissions and cultural boundaries. A few of my thoughts on the subject:
When you hear a story from another culture it becomes a story from your life.
A listener outside the cultural envelope may see possibilities in a story that the "native" cannot find.
It is important to question your assumptions, explicit and implicit. Is the "oral tradition" a good thing, worth reviving?
It is important to ask yourself, "how is this the story of my life?"
Knowing what you think of a story, what it's value is to your culture, gives you greater personal authority.
Seek to hold the courage of your convictions.

We did some brief breathing and stretching exercises. We tried a little bit of movement inspired by the work of French mime, Etienne Decroux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne_Decroux

We did some vocal work, including falsetto "slides" to smooth our vocal chords.

For the storyteller, words are sounds. We did an ear-training game of matching initial and final sounds in words. We finished with a "daisy chain" linking final and initial sounds.

Rachel, Danny, and Brenda read aloud their Dr. Seuss selections. We saw how the picture book has a performance dynamic of it's own. We began to explore the sound values in words. More will follow tomorrow.

An articulation phrase to practice the distinction between the "wh" and the "w' sounds:
"Whether the weather is fair, or whether the weather is not;
whether the weather is cold, or whether the weather is hot;
we'll weather the weather, whatever the weather,
whether we like it or not!"