Category Archives: My Stories

my original and re-told tales

Before Cave Walls… at the National Storytelling Network Conference 2012

Thank you to the Jaguar, Liz Nichols, for her very positive description of my presentation at the NSN Conference, which she posted in Tim Ereneta’s blog: “Breaking the Eggs — Performance Storytelling in the 21st Century”. See the full post http://storytelling.blogspot.com/2012/07/conference-reflections-liz-nichols.html  An excerpt:

“The show was called “Before Cave Walls… The Story on Our Skin”. … About 25–30 of us sat mesmerized as he started with a lecture/demo on the human history of self-transformation through mask and body art, calling up volunteer after volunteer to be painted as he talked. Then he wove several stories in, some traditional and some in a folktale mode that he and his kids had created – and he used us as his canvas to show characters like jaguar, snake and lizard, and settings like tropical island and African savannah.”
Liz also talked about how the volunteers I painted during the program wore their new faces into the evenings events, for which I am especially appreciative — a mask-maker always hopes that the wearer will bring the mask to life like that. When Willa Brigham took the stage to MC that night’s Oracle Awards presentation in the very unusual looking Picasso/Nuba face, I’m sure many folk in the audience wondered what was going on, why were these people on stage with their faces painted in such strange ways? There were several hundred people in the audience, only a hand full of which were at my afternoon program, so most of them had no context for the painted faces they saw on stage. That uncertainty about what to make of a painted face is intrinsic to the art of transformation. Part of the power and function of the mask is to introduce a sense of mystery about the transient nature of form, to make us wonder  what else is possible.  Continue reading →

Saraswati shows up at the Cincinnati Art Museum

by Christopher Agostino www.agostinoarts.com

In Cincinnati for the National Storytelling Network Conference, I got a chance to go to the Cincinnati Art Museum. A special exhibit on musical instruments included a “Mayuri” from India, a stringed instrument fashioned in the shape of a peacock in reference to the goddess Saraswati — combining two of her iconic representations. Nice to see her again, so soon after painting her.

At the museum, a minor kerfuffle. I had particularly wanted to see the current exhibit “The Collections: 6,000 Years of Art“, displayed in an old-fashioned cabinet style, with lots of unlabeled stuff side by side in jammed glass cabinets. Towards the end I saw a piece of painted pottery from ancient Greece depicting Heracles Continue reading →

The Bird of the Most Beautiful Song

©2012 Christopher Agostino      — re-telling a fable from the Pygmy people of the Ituri forest

A young boy was walking through the forest when he heard a song, a song so beautiful that he followed the sound to see who was singing and he discovered a bird—the Bird of the Most Beautiful Song in the Forest. He asked the bird to come home with him, and when he returned to his house he asked his father to let the bird join them at their meal. The father was annoyed to have to give food to a mere bird, but he agreed. After the meal, the bird flew away.

The next day the boy again heard the singing in the forest, and again he brought the bird home for a meal. The father was more annoyed than before, but again the bird was fed. 

Then a third day, and again the song was heard! This time when the boy returned home with the bird, the father decided it was enough, their food was too precious to share. So he sent the boy off on an errand, and when the boy was gone, the man took the bird into the forest and killed the bird, and with the bird the song died as well, and with the song the man died—for the bird was gone forever; and with the bird, the most beautiful song of the forest was gone forever; and with the song, the man was gone, gone from the forest forever.

I have been wanting to tell this tale ever since I came across it, and I performed it for the first time this past Sunday at the North Hempstead Ecofest at Clark Botanical Garden. Continue reading →