Storytelling from Italian sources
Feb. 22nd, 2003 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast night I went to a storytelling event at the Dante Alighieri center, on Hampshire Ave., not far from MIT. It was the first time I've been in the building, and the first thing I thought about the main area where things were set up for the event was that it would be a reasonable hall for a small wedding.
I'd thought (from an email and the web site) that the storytelling started at 7.30. The posters up outside the hall said 8. So there was plenty of time to pick a good seat... I definitely felt like I was lowering the average age by a lot, until later some other non-geriatric people came in. It was interesting hearing Italian being spoken, rather than Yiddish, which is the non-English I somehow expect to hear from older people.
Finally, things got started. There was an intro by the president of the society, including a top 10 list of why Bocaccio is better than Chaucer (there are more women; there's more sex; students don't need to be told he's funny...), then a piece performed on a lute. I hadn't realized that the neck is bent back. And the lute had a lovely pattern cut out, rather than just the circular hole I'd've expected had it been a guitar.
The evening was billed as Italian Renaissance Tales of Transformation and Deceit: Stories by Boccaccio, Straparola, Basile, and Calvino performed by Libby Franck & David Ingle. I hadn't been paying as much attention as I should've, so thought all the stories were going to be from the Decameron.
Libby Franck went first, telling a tale of a countess who finally gave birth... to a son in the form of a pig. It was a decent story, I suppose, but it felt like she was telling it in a slightly overblown sort of way, a style that seemed like it might've been more appropriate for an audience of kids. I did like that she stood up and used her hands and face in the telling of the story.
Next, David Ingle told a tale of an abbot cuckolding a simple farmer, sending him to "purgatory" while enjoying the wife's favors. He sat, since he seemed to have a hurt leg (he had crutches), but I liked his verbal style better, more low-key, letting the story take precedence over style. OTOH, he didn't seem quite as well-prepared; there was some "dead air" in his stories.
There was an interlude of recorder music twice between the stories, once on a larger recorder, once on a smaller one. Both were quite sweet.
The third story (Libby again) was about a girl who escapes her father's lecherous plans by transforming into a bear, while the fourth story (David) was another from the Decameron, about another lecherous priest (really, you'd think the Church would've dealt with these issues by now...) who dressed as the angel Gabriel to get the someone else's wife he wanted. There was about to be a fifth story, but I was tired, and slightly too warm, and ready to go, so took advantage of sitting towards the back to leave at that point.
Ran into JB, TCB, and Kimberlogic as I was heading out. *wave* Always cool when that happens, feels like a small neighborhood, a place I have lots of (roots isn't exactly the word I want, but tendrils doesn't have the right connotations).
A nice time, though the storytellers weren't the best I've heard; made me want to go find more storytelling events.
I'd thought (from an email and the web site) that the storytelling started at 7.30. The posters up outside the hall said 8. So there was plenty of time to pick a good seat... I definitely felt like I was lowering the average age by a lot, until later some other non-geriatric people came in. It was interesting hearing Italian being spoken, rather than Yiddish, which is the non-English I somehow expect to hear from older people.
Finally, things got started. There was an intro by the president of the society, including a top 10 list of why Bocaccio is better than Chaucer (there are more women; there's more sex; students don't need to be told he's funny...), then a piece performed on a lute. I hadn't realized that the neck is bent back. And the lute had a lovely pattern cut out, rather than just the circular hole I'd've expected had it been a guitar.
The evening was billed as Italian Renaissance Tales of Transformation and Deceit: Stories by Boccaccio, Straparola, Basile, and Calvino performed by Libby Franck & David Ingle. I hadn't been paying as much attention as I should've, so thought all the stories were going to be from the Decameron.
Libby Franck went first, telling a tale of a countess who finally gave birth... to a son in the form of a pig. It was a decent story, I suppose, but it felt like she was telling it in a slightly overblown sort of way, a style that seemed like it might've been more appropriate for an audience of kids. I did like that she stood up and used her hands and face in the telling of the story.
Next, David Ingle told a tale of an abbot cuckolding a simple farmer, sending him to "purgatory" while enjoying the wife's favors. He sat, since he seemed to have a hurt leg (he had crutches), but I liked his verbal style better, more low-key, letting the story take precedence over style. OTOH, he didn't seem quite as well-prepared; there was some "dead air" in his stories.
There was an interlude of recorder music twice between the stories, once on a larger recorder, once on a smaller one. Both were quite sweet.
The third story (Libby again) was about a girl who escapes her father's lecherous plans by transforming into a bear, while the fourth story (David) was another from the Decameron, about another lecherous priest (really, you'd think the Church would've dealt with these issues by now...) who dressed as the angel Gabriel to get the someone else's wife he wanted. There was about to be a fifth story, but I was tired, and slightly too warm, and ready to go, so took advantage of sitting towards the back to leave at that point.
Ran into JB, TCB, and Kimberlogic as I was heading out. *wave* Always cool when that happens, feels like a small neighborhood, a place I have lots of (roots isn't exactly the word I want, but tendrils doesn't have the right connotations).
A nice time, though the storytellers weren't the best I've heard; made me want to go find more storytelling events.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-22 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-22 11:53 pm (UTC)yay!
no subject
Date: 2003-02-23 05:53 am (UTC)I tend to think I'm ok at description, but suck at dialogue. And coming up with ideas for stories that feel original, not just a cobbled-together piece of other people's ideas, is non-trivial...
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Date: 2003-02-23 06:08 am (UTC)Odd coincidence
Date: 2003-02-23 11:52 am (UTC)n