09/10/2018
All hail the Mighty Water Goddess!
We got home last night from Colorado where we traveled to met Sarah Syverson and the other folk involved with the creation of The Raven Narratives and the Silverton Theatre Mine Company.
It was so much fun to meet a whole new group of dedicated thespians!
A week before, Sarah had called us about bringing YO MAMA ~ UN-CANNED to Colorado and introduce us to her theatre tribe.
So we went to see their production of the Raven Narratives, http://ravennarratives.org/
in a little black box theatre in the basement of the Grand Imperial Hotel nestled in Silverton, Colorado high in the Rocky Mountains. They put us up in the Grand Imperial as their guests! Holy cow! It was so beautifully renovated! http://www.grandimperialhotel.com/
Doni hit it off with the Raven Narratives’ sound engineer Tom Yoder and well, everybody we met involved in the theatre! I felt that my dad, Tom Hunter was guiding us. I felt his and my mom, Katherine’s presence. Their energy reminded me of the early days getting the Rome Actor’s Workshop running.
Doni and I fell in love with the little 70 seat black box theatre in the bowels of the Grand Imperial otherwise known as the G.I…haw haw. Get it? Bowels of the Grand Imperial, lower G.I…haw haw. We met with the artistic director, Daniel Sullivan, and some of the board members of the Silverton Theatre Mine, Judy Graham and Ted Pope.
The Raven Narratives are inspired by the same art form as the Moth: https://themoth.org/.
We not only got to watch the wonderfully moving presentation by the Raven Narratives but Sarah asked if we would do some warm ups with the storytellers prior to their stage appearance. We heartily obliged!
Non of the storytellers were professional actors. For some this was their first time in front of an audience. They were aged from 20’s to 70’s. Two of them were born and raised in the small mining town of Silverton. Their beauty was in their willingness to share a profound personal experience with a group of listeners.
We as the audience, were reminded that these are ordinary people sharing personal experiences and our job was to support them, breathe with them and honor their experience.
We listened to 8 storytellers on the theme of Water. Water in any form; rivers, ice, snow, rain, fog, dark deep pools, washing dishes, whatever form that inspired a memorable experience involving water.
Many of the storytellers did not know each other prior to being chosen to tell their story.
Yet I noticed that all 8 of the stories shared three common elements; an emotional challenge, awe of nature and a mystical experience. This was not a cultivated intention. It just happened organically. I think people’s internal reality is much more mystical than we demonstrate to the visible world. All hail the Mighty Water Goddess!
For more information on the Raven Narratives please go to: http://ravennarratives.org/
The home page for the Raven Narratives storytelling project.
