AUSTIN OWENS/THE LANTERNOSU Sophmore Zach Everhart (LEFT) reflects on the question, “What women want?” posed by storyteller Kevin Cordi (RIGHT). Audience participation was an amusing part of Kevin Cordi’s storytelling performance at the Hale Center Wednesday.Students, faculty and Columbus locals came to the Younkin Success Center on Tuesday night to learn and tell stories in a community coaching workshop with storyteller Kevin Cordi.
“Everybody needs a storyteller,” Cordi said. “For everyday storytelling, and even interactive conversations, everyone needs to listen more. It’s really important that we take the time to sit and listen.”
Cordi is a doctoral candidate in education and dramatic inquiry at Ohio State. He has told stories in more than 40 states and many countries including England, Singapore and Japan. He was also the first full-time high school storytelling teacher in the country.
“I have five brothers and sisters, and parents who always told stories,” Cordi said. “I would sit and listen. I fell in love with the power of narrative, and it’s the best teaching tool ever.”
Cordi has developed the idea of ensemble storytelling, or a story told and created by many different people, and is co-author of a book called “Raising Voices: Youth Storytelling Groups and Troupes.”
“I’ve told stories with the Lollipop guy from the ‘Wizard of Oz,’ ” Cordi said. “There’s also been quiet moments. I’ve had students who I never thought would tell a story, and then they break that mold. My mother has introduced me to others before as a storyteller, and that’s very powerful unto itself.”
Participants in the workshop, sponsored by the OSU Multicultural Center, took the time to listen through various exercises Cordi led, which included breathing exercises and an exercise where participants told a story that they “knew by heart.”
For Wild Goose Creative organization co-founder Ryan Hoke, this was a childhood story about losing a jacket that contained all of his birthday money on the beach. For Camille Cushman, a graduate student in education teaching and learning, this story entailed two weeks in clown gear.
“I’m here because I like telling stories to children,” Cushman said.
One exercise Cordi led encouraged participants to say the same word, such as “scalawag,” in as many different ways as possible. Another was making sounds to illustrate words.
“Stories are everywhere,” Cordi said. “You never know what the person next to you is going to say, and what story they’re telling. Everyone has come here for different reasons.”
An ensemble storytelling exercise included a real life story based on two participants, Christa and Frank Porter. The couple was questioned by police on a recent trip to Germany, and was told if their stories did not match up, they were going to jail. Cordi used this story to illustrate to the workshop how stories can help us deal with problems.
While other participants acted out the parts of the couple and police, the pair told participants if what they were doing was accurate, and gave them tips on how to make it more accurate. After it was acted out as it happened, the participants went back and re-created it how the couple actually wanted it to turn out.
Cordi’s point with the exercise was to show how, in stories, the past can be revisited.
“You need to make sure people are ready for something like that,” Cordi said. “My job was to mediate, and to make sure they feel comfortable seeing that happen.”
Christa Porter, an intercultural specialist at the OSU Multicultural Center, said it was a great event.
“There were different voices and perspectives,” Christa Porter said. “There was a real trust here, and a real comfort. It was a great experience.”
Cordi also developed the Storybox Project that was created on campus in fall 2008. The box travels around the world and allows people to share their stories. The box will return to campus in the spring of 2010.
“We’re not often asked what we think,” Cordi said. “I challenge a reader sitting alone to turn around and ask someone the funniest thing that’s happened to them that day. You’ll get something back. There’s an old Croatian saying that ‘you never hurt someone once you know their story.’ It’s true.”
Caitlin O’Neil can be reached at [email protected].
