[ Birdsong ]
-Have you ever noticed the birds flying in the sky?
-Yeah! -Yeah!
And they look so beautiful!
When people come together to listen to stories...
Because there was a king, the king of the sky...
Something unspoken happens.
Human connection that nobody has to put a word to.
Those birds... We are recognizing
our humanity together.
Every day they bring me joy.
They make pictures in the sky.
They fly around.
My name is Eva Abram.
I am a storyteller.
Because from the time I was a child,
the importance of the vote had been etched into my brain.
But it was about 20 years ago, I would guess --
I literally woke up in the middle of the night
and said, "Storyteller."
When I actually met Susan B Anthony...
I read the story and then I just see what attracts me to it.
I knew that her family had been abolitionist...
What message it carries, and how the story flows.
-...for the birds.
-The King of the sky is giving a feast.
[ All ] Help spread the word!
Once I find the story, then I have to write it.
I have to rewrite it so that it works for me.
Finding your delivery style is something you have to find.
You have to practice
and discover things about yourself.
Anansi the spider happened to be around the corner
behind a rock.
Anansi heard about this feast,
and if there's anything he loves, is a feast.
Storytelling is much more fluid.
I don't have to say the same thing exactly the same way.
But there is a problem.
As long as the messages get across...
-He can't fly. -Anansi can't...
-[All] Fly!
-Yes, Anansi can't fly!
But Anansi would not let a little thing like
not being able to fly keep him from going to a feast.
It helps us organize information.
Tap, tap, tap, think, think, think.
He didn't think of anything, but...
Continuing and recognizing customs and traditions.
-A bird flew over, it was Bluebird.
Bluebird flew over and one of her feathers
floated down
and landed right at Anansi's foot.
Anansi picked up that feather,
"I know! I know what I'm going to do!"
The pictures are created by the young people's imagination.
They create what the setting looks like,
they add the sounds and maybe even the smells of the setting.
Storytelling addresses many different areas of study.
All of these birds were so generous.
They gave him a bunch of feathers...
Performance, drama, literature, writing.
Well, Anansi collected some sap from the tree,
and sap is just like glue.
Science and math and geography.
He dipped a feather in the glue and...
[ Children murmuring ]
He dipped the feather in the glue
and stuck it on his body.
They're learning about --
about values.
And they are also learning
perhaps about what kind of person they want to be
because, well,
stories have all kinds of characters.
When I'm working on a story about a character from history,
that process involves a lot of research.
You're dealing with a real person.
I have been at this
for a long time.
I try to put myself in that person's shoes.
I try to to to imagine myself as that person.
It helps get into that character.
It helps make them even more real,
it's another tool that you have
to get you in the right mindset.
Some of you may not know me. I am Mary McLeod Bethune.
And sometimes fighting injustice
is like trying to roll against a torrent
with only your hands for a paddle.
And he was a-flapping and a-flapping and, ooh!
He was so flying! Yes!
Anansi joined all the other birds
and they flew to the king of the sky's house.
Since the beginning of time, since before we had languages,
we were telling stories.
I am pigeon, I am crow.
...to teach those values, those social expectations.
Anansi's a spider. He's not supposed to be there.
Right? I'm robin. I'm thrush.
I'm swallow. I'm wren.
He got it!
He said, "I know what to say!"
And when it got to be his turn,
he said, "I... I am all of you,"
because he had feathers from all of those birds.
Because it reminds us to...
Kind of come away a little bit from our individuality
that we lose ourselves in
most of the time as we go through life.
He tried to squeeze in,
but he couldn't get into the food,
so he stepped back, he said, "Wait!"
And realize that we all are human
and we need to work for the good of all human beings.
And the birds stopped eating and looked up.
He said, "Who is this feast for?"
And the king said, "Well, this feast is for all of you."
That's what storytelling does for me --
and hopefully all of my audiences.
Oral storytelling is not a thing of the past.
Oral storytelling will be with us
as long as human beings can talk.
I thank you all for coming, listening.
♪♪
Learn more about Eva at:
rainwaterstorytelling.com.
♪♪
Catch Art Zone Friday nights at 8
and anytime online at
seattlechannel.org/artzone.