The world is full of stories, both explicit and implicit. Stories and narratives help us learn and make sense of things. Jesus and Buddah taught their disciples through parables and Obama got elected by telling stories. But what is the best way to tell a story?
Because our show (and just about any other show) is full of stories, we have been exploring different and exciting ways to tell them. We have used poetry, mime, songs, dance, comic strips, drawings, ladders, chalk, and various other mediums to share our stories and those of the heyokah. What I think that we have found through hours of trial and error is that simple is best. In most cases, the beauty of the story is in the words, and any visual stimulation distracts the audience from the words.
For example, Kaleena, James, and Vanessa have been working on Kaleena's personal story for about two weeks. They created a fancy comic book-ish atmosphere complete with ninjas, nemesis, and noises. However, the more they added, the less we understood Kaleena's story.
Similarly, Hannah and Stephen have been working on a story about letting go. They choreographed a series of movements to go along with Hannah's words, and discussed at length the symbols they were trying to use. Like in Kaleena's case, the more Stephen and Hannah added to the piece, the less clear it became.
In the last two "shit days," we have been reevaluating the project and what we want to do with it. Part of that process has been to revisit all of the personal stories and pieces and work to make them show-ready. While working and experimenting, we discovered that in both Kaleena and Hannah's cases the story was most clear when they were just telling it to us. Plain and simple.
