As a child, I grew up listening to my father read vivid stories, transporting me to other worlds. It’s been many decades since I’ve had that treat, but seasonal resident Nancy Binzen is offering adults the opportunity to recapture the magic of hearing a great raconteur. The evening will be a warm community experience at the Vineyard Haven library on Tuesday, Jan. 14, at 6 pm.
Binzen has been telling myths and traditional folktales to adults for 25 years. She has a BA in theatre arts and a certificate in storytelling from Dominican University, and has studied with noted mythologist Martin Shaw.
My first question when we spoke was about the definition of traditional storytelling. “The old stories are in contrast to personal storytelling,” Binzen told me. “I’m talking about myths, fairytales, legends, and lore. These are the ones that don’t have an author. They have been passed down from mouth to ear for sometimes hundreds of years, and often have traveled around the world, being changed and modified on their journey. These stories spring from that impulse to go deeper into a more expansive place of wonder.” She points out that with these traditional tales, the listener can enter them at any point that resonates with them.
In comparison, she feels, “With a true story that has happened to somebody, you can appreciate it. You can celebrate with them. You can be sad for them. You can even take away, ‘Oh, that’s how it might be for me,’ but that can only go so far.”
This coming Tuesday, Binzen will narrate the Siberian myth of the Red Bead Woman and the folktale of the Selkie Bride, from the Orkney Isles. Both stories are centuries old, and revolve around a woman discovering and reclaiming her true identity, although their journeys differ.
Preparing to tell a traditional folktale or myth is an art. Binzen starts by hearing the story from another teller, or reading different written versions: “For example, many selkie stories come from Ireland and Scotland. They’re all wonderful, but come from something I have read, and then work with, adapt, chew on, and then see what emerges in how I tell them.”
What Binzen means by “chewing on” a story is never memorizing it: “This sets it in stone. There’s no place for the teller to discover anything. It becomes more like a theatrical performance.” Instead, she reads a story once, sets it down, recounts it aloud to see if she has a sense of it, and then repeats the process. “I’ll read the story again, but very soon, I’ll put it down, and I’ll just start what I call walking the story out. It’s usually very rough the first few tellings. Then I begin to get a sense of it. What I always tell people I work with is to know how you start your story and how you’re going to end it, and then let the story carry you through the rest of the way.”
By telling the story repeatedly, you create what Binzen refers to as a “pathway” to follow: “This way, every time I tell it, there may be something new, so that the storyteller can be surprised along with the listener. It becomes something that the teller and listeners enter into together.” She continues, “Sometimes, the story changes over time. What was so important just isn’t that imperative and central to the story anymore. Six months or a year later, maybe even just a month or two later, suddenly, something pops up as being a critical piece, and you present it slightly differently.”
Asked why it’s important for adults to listen to folktales and myths, Binzen replies, “So few adults are told stories these days. We always think that storytelling is for children. Parents and grandparents will tell stories to them. We all know that some magical thing happens, a bond that’s created when stories are shared. But when we grow up, we don’t usually have an opportunity to be in that space again where someone tells us a story, unless it’s personal storytelling.” Referring to the Vineyard Haven library event, she assures us, “This will be an evening where you simply can become a child again and enjoy the story.”
Nancy Binzen will present “Traditional Storytelling for Adults” on Tuesday, Jan. 14, at 6 pm at the Vineyard Haven library. Refreshments will be served courtesy of the Friends of the Library. For more information, call 508-696-4211, or email vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org.
