By Judie Holcomb-Pack
Everyone loves a good story, especially when it’s told with enthusiasm, humor and a dash of tall tales. That’s how members of the NC Association of Black Storytellers spun their tales last week at the International Black Theatre Festival. Association founder Pat Stepney said she started storytelling when she worked in the youth section of the public library. She introduced the storytellers and set the stage for an hour in which the audience could leave the stresses of everyday life behind and immerse themselves in a world of fiction and fantasy – or was that it?
These storytellers could make anyone a believer!
Michael Conner, a lecturer at Livingstone College, “wondered how it all began” as he recounted the Genesis creation story with a beautiful and dramatic narrative of God’s creation of the world that is easy to imagine each day as it unfolds. “And on the seventh day he rested. Amen!”
Alice Bittings told an emotional story about “strange fruit,” based on the song about the Southern lynchings, and told the story of Emmett Till as if she were telling it to her son, reminding us, “Never forget Emmett!”
Renee Andrews, “The Story Lady,” began her career at the Forsyth County Public Library, reading and telling stories to youth. She told the story of “Catch the Fire” and inspired audiences to “catch the fire and live!”
Pattycake, a storyteller from Alamance County, is also a magician. She got the audience going by having them play the children’s game of “clap your partner’s hands.” She explained Newton’s law that “a body at rest stays at rest,” and talked about what it was like to watch TV when she was growing up – you had to get up to change the channel, there were only three channels, and you couldn’t watch TV all night because all the networks went off at midnight. She encouraged the audience to “get up and exercise your brain!”
Pat Stepney is the children’s storyteller at her church and entertained the audience with the story of the buzzard who tricked squirrels, rabbits and other animals into “taking a cool ride on my back,” and then he dove, threw his victim, flew down and ate it! The story ended with her encouraging the audience to sing “Stand up and fly right!”
Beverly Fields Burnette said she would tell us about a great trouble and told the story of Br’er Rabbit and a pond full of alligators.
Grandpa Junebug of Southern Pines said his grandmother told him true stories about Dunbar when he was a kid, and that’s why he’s a storyteller today. He told a funny (and somewhat risqué) story about kinship and blood relations (or lack thereof) that had the audience laughing at the surprising punch line.
The Apple Lady from Winston-Salem handed out apples to the audience and told how her grandmother got her 13 children ready for church on Sunday.
The last storyteller was also a drummer and he told stories about people from Nigeria and a story about a dog.
With the final bow and the applause of the audience, all we were left with was this reminder: “We are all just grown-up children.”
Would you like to invite a storyteller to your event? For more information, see http://www.ncabstellers.org/.
