WS Chronicle

By Judie Holcomb-Pack

Everybody loves a good story, and especially when that story is told with enthusiasm, humor, and  a little bit of tall tales thrown in. That’s how the members of the N.C. Association of Black Storytellers spun their yarns at last week’s International Black Theatre Festival. Association founder, Pat Stepney, said she got her start telling stories when she worked in the youth section of the public library. She introduced the storytellers and set the stage for an hour when the audience could set aside any stresses of the day and be enveloped in a world of fiction and fantasy – or was it?

These storytellers could make believers out of anyone!

Michael Conner, an educator at Livingstone College, “wondered how it all began” as he told the Genesis story of creation with a beautiful and dramatic telling of God creating the world that you could easily visualize each day as it unfolded. “And on the seventh day he rested. Amen!”

Alice Bittings told an emotional story of “strange fruit” based on the song about the lynchings in the South and told the story of Emmett Till as if telling the story to her son. She reminded us “Never forget Emmett!”

Renee Andrews, “The Story Lady,” got her start in the Forsyth County Public Library reading and telling stories to the youth. She told the story of “Catch the Fire,” meaning the fire of adventure, inspiring the audience to “catch the fire and live!”

Pattycake, a storyteller from Alamance County, is also a magician. She warmed up the audience by having them play the children’s game of clapping your partner’s hands. She explained Newton’s Law that “a body at rest stays at rest,” and told about what it was like to watch TV when she was growing up – you had to get up to change the channel, there were only three channels, and you couldn’t watch TV all night because at midnight all the stations signed off. She encouraged the audience to “get up and exercise your brain!”

Pat Stepney is the children’s storyteller at her church and regaled the audience with the story of the buzzard who enticed the squirrel and rabbit and other animals to “take a cool ride on my back,” and then he’d dip and dump his victim off, fly down and eat them! The story ended with her leading the audience in singing “Straighten up and fly right!” 

Beverly Fields Burnette said she was going to tell us about some good trouble and told the story of Br’er Rabbit and a pond of alligators.

Granddaddy Junebug, who is from Southern Pines, said his grandmother told him real stories about Dunbar when he was growing up and that’s why he’s a storyteller today. He told a funny (and slightly risque) story about kinfolk and blood relations (or lack of the same) that had the audience laughing at the surprising punchline.

The Apple Lady, who is from Winston-Salem, handed out apples to the audience and told about how her grandmother got her 13 children ready for church on Sunday.

The last storyteller was also a drummer and he told stories about people from Nigeria and a story about a dog.

With the last bow and the audience’s applause, we were left with this reminder: “We’re all just grown-up children.”

Want to have a storyteller come to your event? Find more information at http://www.ncabstellers.org/.