“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Phillip Pullman
“Real Stories. Straight Up.” That’s the theme of the upcoming National Cowboy Poetry Gathering—our 33rd! As January turns to February, we will be gathered in Elko, sharing first-hand accounts, narratives passed down and around, and undoubtedly a yarn or two. The Gathering presents stories told in verse and melody and prose. To that mix, we are adding personal narratives, told by real people about real occurrences in their lives, in real time.
In case you haven’t noticed, stories are The Thing these days—there has been a renaissance of storytelling, and these stories have a much broader audience as they are distributed through digital media. We’ve gone from the campfire to the podcast. But stories are best told in person, to a rapt audience, and storytelling has always been at the heart of the Gathering arts. Our participants love to tell a good story and to listen to one. Check out all the Gathering storytelling sessions at nationalcowboypoetrygathering.org/full-schedule/. Look for the quote box icon and you’ll know there will be stories in that show.
We are particularly excited to be hosting The Moth Mainstage at this year’s Gathering, Saturday, February 4, at 8:00 pm in the Elko Convention Center Auditorium. The Moth is a leader in the national resurgence of storytelling performance, and is dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Since launching in 1997, The Moth has presented more than 20,000 stories, told live and without notes, by people from all walks of life to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. It is a dance between documentary and theater, storytelling and performance, everyday people and entertainment. The show features five carefully selected storytellers who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors. Past shows have featured stories by an astronaut, a pickpocket, a hot-dog-eating champion and hundreds more. In addition to the live Mainstage performance, which it presents all over the world, The Moth also produces The Moth Radio Hour, which is presented on more than 450 public radio stations. We listen to it in Elko on Nevada Public Radio, from Las Vegas. The Moth also produces a popular podcast, has open mic competitions, works with high school students on storytelling performance and even helps corporations solve problems through storytelling.
The Moth Mainstage. Photo by Flash Rosenburg.
Their values and their mission are similar to ours:
The Moth is true stories, told live and without notes. The Moth celebrates the ability of stories to honor both the diversity and commonality of human experience, and to satisfy a vital human need for connection. It seeks to present recognized storytellers among established and emerging writers, performers and artists and to encourage storytelling among communities whose stories often go unheard.*
And, The Moth’s origins are rural—it was started by a poet(!) and novelist on a back porch in small-town Georgia. The founder, George Dawes Green, “would spend sultry summer evenings swapping spellbinding tales with a small circle of friends. There was a hole in the screen, which let in moths that were attracted to the light, and the group started calling themselves “The Moths.”* Cool, huh?
The Moth produces the Mainstage show with a minimum of extraneous activity or props: like cowboy poetry, it is raw, fresh, and beautifully presented, an intimate conversation between the teller and the listener. Last Sunday’s Moth Radio Hour featured a wonderful narrative told by Melanie Yazzie, a Navajo woman on the faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She told a story about her grandmother, who was an extraordinary rug weaver. Her story hinged on a discovery of one of her grandmother’s rugs being displayed and erroneously identified as being made by “Anonymous.” It is a poignant story about the teller’s life in the contemporary art world, but still so connected to the tribal tradition through her elders. This is the kind of story you will hear in The Moth’s show at the Gathering. Listen to it here:
http://player.themoth.org/#/?actionType=ADD_AND_PLAY&storyId=11929
Melanie Yazzi. Photo by Jessica Taves.
Please join us January 30 to February 4, 2017 for a week of stories, poetry, music, dancing, film, food, conversation and camaraderie! Visit nationalcowboypoetrygathering.org for more information and to get your tickets.
*From The Moth website at www.themoth.org.
