BROWN BEAR MASK TELLS THE STORY OF MONSTER BEAR - PART ONE

By Rita Grimaldi

Choosing the Mask

I have made three Bear masks - Black Bear, Brown Bear and White Bear.

                   Here is a photo of all three bear masks.

For this year’s Halloween telling I did not want to use Black Bear. It is a sacred mask for me and although it could easily represent Bear Monster I did not want to use it in that way. White Bear is a young creature and did not suit the telling either. So that left me with Brown Bear. This mask was originally made for a dance performance – to be worn by one of the dancers. I have never worn it. It lacked power. So yesterday I began to work with it to give it a stronger ‘presence’.

Here is the changed mask. Can you tell how I changed it? Can you identify the natural materials I have added to bring about a stronger presence?

  

Choosing the Story

Often in mask work, the chosen story for the mask does not work. Then a second story has to be tried. But in this project, all along I had in my mind a story about a monster bear. I kept looking for such a story. When the first story did not work, I looked again. I went to the library. I searched my books. Finally, when I had given up, I found a book a friend had given me and it opened at the story of the monster bear. 

Who is the Bear Telling the Story?

Once, for Halloween, in mask I told the story of the Duppy Bird. This is a bird that kills a boy. It took me days to get over telling it. I realized that it is not in my temperament to transform into a killing monster through mask. So this time, I wanted the safety of being one of the other story characters. 

In the story, there is a second and third bear. I rewrote the original story to eliminate the third bear and wrote in the second bear as a witness to what is happening. This gave me the safety of being the observer. Here is an outline of my version of the story.

The Story of Katcheetohuskw 

The original story comes from the Naskapi tribe of Northern Quebec. The monster bear in the story is extremely large and eats humans.

• ·       Long ago when bears could talk as humans do, there lived an old man and his wife. They had an infant son and an older daughter.
• ·       One day, the old man and his wife go to chop wood and are eaten by the monster bear.
• ·       Brown Bear sees all this.
• ·       The daughter cares for her infant brother. He grows quickly and is soon hunting on his own.
• ·       Then goes off to avenge his father’s death.
• ·       Brown Bear is told to kill the boy by Monster Bear but he will not.
• ·       Monster Bear goes to kill the boy himself. By Magic the boy goes bigger as he confronts the monster bear.
• ·       Brown Bear hides in the forest where the boy is to see what will happen…

I will leave the story at this point until Part Two of my post. In doing this, I will let myself experience during the actual performance, the end confrontation through the eyes of Brown Bear mask. 

Questions for my Experiencing of the Story

The power of the story rests in the confrontation between the monster bear and the boy. This power comes from what is said and what is done. Here are the two questions I want to answer for myself.

1.   Does something happen inside me as I take the witness role as transformed Brown Bear? In this form, am I internalizing the story?

2.   Does the audience also experience the story as witnesses along with the Brown Bear mask?

To be continued...

BROWN BEAR MASK - PART TWO

BROWN BEAR MASK EXPERIENCES THE POWER OF BEING A WITNESS

By Rita Grimaldi

A Personal Truth

My father died when I was 22. Perhaps the truth is that because fathers are always a generation ahead of their children, everyone sees their fathers die. And if you had a good father as I did, it may be true that you want to confront and defeat the death that killed him.

For it is true that in all of us the young child sees our father as invincible.

The Performance

Transforming into Brown Bear by using mask and having Brown Bear take the role of witness for most of the story, allowed me to absorb the story in a much more personal way.

                                  

Brown Bear as Witness

The witness role allowed me to unconsciously feel what was happening between the boy and the Monster Bear that killed his father.

During the performance, the boy’s words came out of my mouth along with the boy’s feelings.

The boy says “Who killed my father?”

Monster Bear answers indignantly “I did.”

But after the performance, it is as if I had said,

“Who killed my father?”

And death answered,

“I did.”

And then in the performance, the boy says “How hard was he to kill?”

And Monster Bear replies “About as hard as a dry juniper.”

Then the boy shoots his arrow into a dry juniper and it explodes into a million shards.  With this act, the boy grows to be the size of a man. And he says “Not hard enough.”

After the performance I think my father should not have died.

I should have been able to kill death for him.

Just as the boy kills the Monster Bear.

I know that this is not a rational thought. But the child part of me who believes in the invincible good father still believes it.

Brown Bear then witnesses the boy shattering a rock with his next arrow. And then the boy shoots his arrows at Monster Bear. As the bear dies, he tells the boy what to do with his body.

The Good Father’s Legacy

As Katcheetohuskw is dying, the text says that he instructs the boy to “Cut my body into small pieces, eat my head, but keep my ears for your bed.” I wrote into the original text that when sleeping, the boy would hear Katcheetohuskw and listen to his instructions. The boy becomes a great hunter.

Doing as he is told, the boy cuts Monster Bear’s body into small pieces and throws some into the air. These become birds and fly away. Then the boy throws some on the ground. These become animals and run away.

Now the story circles back to something positive coming from the negative killing of the good father. The boy now has the resource to become a great hunter.

Brown Bear As Witness

There are two witnessing times for Brown Bear. At the beginning of the story, he witnesses the killing of the husband and wife. And at end of the story, Brown Bear, hiding in the forest, watches the boy’s confrontation with the Bear Monster.

Both times as a witness, Brown Bear experiences emotion. First, the emotion of loss and grief as the daughter sees her dead parents. And second, the emotion of amazement as he sees the boy grow by magic as he confronts the Monster Bear.

Brown Bear witnesses the confrontation between the boy and the Monster Bear. As he hears what the boy says and sees the boy’s actions, he reports these to the audience.

  Brown Bear reporting and showing

the shooting of the arrow into the rock.

Because in the first and last segments, Brown Bear was not part of the action of the story but only a reporter of the action and words, the actions and words of the story had a greater effect on me. I don’t know why this is so, but it was.

I became a witness too. I was one step behind Brown Bear, one step inside Brown bear, one step beneath Brown Bear. The role of witness engulfed me. And what I was witnessing had direct relevance to my own life.

The End Of The Story

At the end of the story, I wrote in that Brown Bear would say

“All this I Brown Bear saw, and I Brown Bear remember, for it is good to remember what happens.”

When I went home from the performance, a great line of memories of my father’s life and death came to me. So I could say for myself

“All this I Rita saw, and I Rita remember.

For it is good to remember what happens.”

Note: In rewriting the story for telling in mask, I made many changes to the original. The complete original story of ‘Katcheetohuskw’ can be found in Giving Voice to Bear (1991) by David Rock.

'THE FOOLISH MAN' COMES TO WESTWOOD PARK

By Betty Bennett

Picture to yourself a bright, crisp fall day in a tree-filled park beside a river. Now imagine a path through that park, a path that is sometimes narrow as it passes through a dense woods. Imagine coming upon a castle on a deserted plain and then climbing up a high, rocky hill to the place where a wise old man lives.

On Saturday, several of the Peterborough Storytellers visited such a place for a magical storytelling experience. And some of those things were really there – the park, the river and the castle.

In 2015, Ken Arndt, a local woodworker and artist was commissioned to create something from the large stump of a diseased elm tree that had been cut down in Asphodel Park near Westwood. Ken created a Hobbit-like castle tower that might have come right out of a Tolkien story. When I saw the first pictures of the castle in the park, I knew it would be the perfect prop for a participative, walking storytelling.

The time finally came this fall when the castle became an element in the story of The Foolish Man at a storytelling event sponsored by the Westwood branch of the Asphodel Norwood Library.

On a bright Saturday morning, Foolish Jack (Betty) gathered a group of about twenty children and adults under the picnic shelter. Jack told them that he is industrious, honest and kind, but he just can’t get ahead –it doesn’t seem fair. And so he invited them to join him as he travelled to seek the advice of the Wise Old Man of the Woods to find out where his good fortune lies.

As Jack and his procession made their way, they met a hungry wolf in the woods (Rita in mask), a sad lady at a castle (Angie), and a dying tree beside the river bank before finally arriving at the home of the Wise Old Man (John), seated in the crotch of a massive tree.

Along the way, the party imagined walking single file down a narrow woodland path, climbing (out of breath!) up a steep hill and hurrying -- quickly! quickly! -- homeward with the old man’s advice.

Of course, Foolish Jack is so blinded by the prospect of his good fortune that he doesn’t recognize that solving the problem of the dying tree would make him rich or that staying with the sad lady at the castle would make him happy and even richer. And of course, he might escape being eaten by the wolf if he weren’t so foolishly oblivious!

The children and adults were a wonderful audience, following Jack’s instructions on both the real and the imagined parts of the walk and offering advice to Jack and the Wolf. And when the Wolf decided to ease his hunger by eating Foolish Jack, one youngster obliged with a wonderful shriek!

When we returned to the picnic shelter, Angie played a lovely Celtic tune on the harp and told the story of The Harper’s Gratuity and Rita entertained the little ones with finger plays, a drawing story and the tale of Tiny Mouse.

I’m sure we will return to Asphodel Park for more storytelling, as castles are such frequent elements in folk and fairy tales.

Betty Bennett is an active member of the Peterborough Storytellers and the organizer of the Westwood Park walk sponsored by the local library.

Contact us at peterboroughstorytellers@cogeco.ca

A BIRD MASK STORY and DANCING WITH KAHA BIRD

By Rita Grimaldi

The Story Of The Kaha Bird

The full story is available on the Internet, but here is a summary.

A magical bird from the Cloud World decides to help an old Fisherman. The bird brings him a fish every night. The Shah of the country needs the blood of the bird to restore his sight. Out of greed for the Shah’s reward, the Fisherman betrays the bird. He catches her by the feet. To escape, the bird rises into the air with 400 servants of the Shah, holding on to the Fisherman’s feet. When the Fisherman can no longer hold on, he releases the bird. He and the servants are smashed into the ground. The magical bird returns to its Cloud World and never comes to earth again.

Choosing A Mask

Taking out my five bird masks, I consider which one will tell the story.

My eye falls on the Black Bird mask. I choose it as the teller. However, I did not realize until the afternoon of the day I was to perform the story, that this was the wrong choice. More about that later…

Exploring Why I Choose To Tell Conflict Stories In Mask

In mask storytelling, a recurring choice for me is to tell a story in which the hero interacts with an enemy whose original intent or whose discovered intent during the story, is to harm the hero.

I ask myself - why do I choose these stories for mask storytelling?

The answer is that telling these stories in mask immerses me in the pattern of danger and then brings me forward within that pattern to some resolution of the danger.

Story Structure

       

First, the hero is innocent – he or she does not perceive any danger.

  

Next, danger begins to rise up in the hero’s consciousness. The hero realizes that there is some danger to his wellbeing.

       

Finally, the hero decides on some action to respond to the danger threat. First, he may learn to walk away as Wolf does in my rewrite of the Iron Wolf story. Or second, he may get directly involved with the danger threat and succeed in escaping it. Just as the Kaha bird does in this story. Or finally, the hero may unfortunately meet a tragic end.

Living these events through mask helps me face the possibilities of resolving conflicts in life. Facing threats in this way is not at all like the abstract reading of psychology texts; it puts the options of how to react to conflict into concrete, felt experience.

Here is what I feel during a mask performance of a story containing conflict.

I feel the threatening, negative energy of my adversary.

I feel my fear of his rising power.

I feel the relief of my escape or the pain of my death or sometimes the rightness of just walking away.

These feelings teach me about life and about what it is like to live with conflict in the real world.

Changing Masks Before The Telling Of The Kaha Bird

On the afternoon of performance day, I put on the Black Bird mask to rehearse the story. Looking at the mask in the mirror, I realize it is not the right mask for the story.

Here is the Black Bird mask.

Look hard at its eyes. See how they stare fixedly forwards.

There is fear in the stare.

The story for which this mask was made is about the bird being the protector.

But the Kaha bird needs to protect itself. That is a very different situation.

Realizing that Black Bird was not the right mask to tell the story of The Kaha Bird, I began to try on my other four bird masks. I tell part of the story in each of these masks. I do this looking into a mirror.

Finally, I decide on the mask with the long feather hair. Now look at a performance picture of this mask and see the difference.

Again look at the eyes of the bird.

See the intensity and strength in these eyes.

Also see the magical quality of the face.

It has deep, strong colours and shapes.

Go back and forth between the two birds.

See if you can confirm for yourself the rightness of my choice.

Here is one more photo of the performance.

Let it do for you what it did for me.

Bring you through conflict to a safe place.

A Postscript…

Here is part of an email a friend sent me after seeing the performance.

The story “evoked memories of greedy women I've encountered that eventually I avoided by going back to my Cloud World [what a lovely notion]. “

May 27, 2016

A REACTION TO THE MASK PERFORMANCE: 

DANCING WITH THE KAHA BIRD

By Don Herald

The mask of Kaha Bird just wouldn’t let me go. Several times I tried to look away while still listening to its spoken story. I was not successful. The carefully detailed and colourful features of the mask kept drawing me back, forcing me to admire the artist’s skill in creating it.

But it was the bird’s eyes that held me most firmly.

No matter how the mask moved, I always felt the eyes remained on me. In vain, I tried to find the human eyes surely in behind. The eyes of the Kaha Bird were powerful, challenging and frankly, vaguely unsettling. It was another new storytelling experience for me.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve had the pleasure of watching numerous mask performances by Rita Grimaldi of Peterborough Storytellers. But her Kaha Bird’s mask and story this week were the most unique for me.

Reflecting afterward on my strong reactions to the mask, several elements of the experience came to mind.

First – the overall design of the mask. It is imaginatively detailed in its features and how it was accessorized. The spiky hard feathers radiating out from the face were startling. The bird’s long, finely shaped beak over a lower beak jaw that moved in synch with the teller’s words – seemed both predatory and cunningly charming all at the same time. Masks that possess the moveable lower jaw are not common but the movement during speech impresses the listener and watcher as if it is a living creature standing before you.

Second – the carefully selected accessories. A mix of feather types and subtle colours are dramatically interspersed between the hard spike feathers. The use and placement of these feathers softens the Kaha Bird’s overall appearance while silently encouraging me to see and experience the mask as a living bird.

Third – the colour scheme. Colours were artfully chosen and painted onto the molded features of the Kaha Bird mask. In particular, the brush strokes surrounding the eyes and the ochre coloured patches directly beneath and beside each eye served to capture my attention, directing my thoughts and aroused feelings toward and into those mesmerizing eyes.

In the interests of full disclosure, Rita often uses me as a sounding board for the drafts of her very popular mask series that are posted on our Tales and Tips blog. Because of this relationship, I frequently immerse myself in her thoughts and words she uses to describe the unique lives of her masks, the back stories of some of her performances and most important, how Rita’s total being melds into the character of the mask to create a magical performance experience.

And here is the final element in my reaction to the Kaha Bird.

Transformation.

I know that Rita is not just wearing the mask. She is not just performing in the mask. She is just not speaking the words for the mask.

Rita is the mask. For her, it’s an inclusive, transformative process and experience. Each mask invites Rita to tell its story. In some ways, the story is her real life story too.

Over these many months, I have learned that only when Rita’s emotional and physical Self is able to deeply connect with a mask and its character, will the audience be treated to an extraordinary, engaging experience.

The Kaha Bird mask performance this week was one of those rare, peak listening and seeing experiences for me.

Many thanks to the Kaha Bird. And to my dear colleague Rita.

Rita or Don can be contacted at

PETERBOROUGHSTORYTELLERS@COGECO.CA

Your comments are always welcome.

THE STORY OF THE MOUSE AND THE PRINCESS MASK: PART THREE

By Rita Grimaldi

The Transformation Experience

My Body

“As soon as I entered the water I began to change.”

This is the sentence that came at the end of the Mouse mask portion of the story. After Mouse says this, she goes behind a screen while a musician plays water music on the harp. When the music is finished the Princess comes out in mask, headdress and costume to finish telling the story.

Of course I could not see my Princess mask face or my headdress. And I could see only a small part of my dress. But I knew and had experienced the beauty of these things. I had crafted them with all the skill I possess. They had been hanging in my studio for two weeks.

When I re-emerged as the young maiden, wearing the Princess mask, headdress and costume, it produced a feeling of beauty in me. I belonged to the transformation from Mouse to Princess.

Here are two pictures from the first performance of the story. See how the physicality of Mouse and Princess are different.

Mouse is a solid animal while Princess is graceful and delicate. This is what I had wanted - what I felt deep in my body.

My Voice

It’s true that Mouse and Princess gave me a real and deeply felt experience of the feminine. But equally true for me was how deeply I experienced the masculine in this story.

The men were not experienced through mask but through changes in my voice. Each male had his own cadence, tempo and tone of voice. The negative males – Jukka’s brothers and the bullying peasant boy who kicks Mouse into the river – all had a taunting quality to their voices. And in the case of the bully boy, a loud dominate shout.

Jukka, the younger positive male, who promises to marry the mouse, had a driven quantity to his voice - as if he did not know how things would turn out but would keep going forward regardless. Jukka’s father, the elder positive male, had a deep and steady voice.

Without thought, all these different male voices automatically emerged during the storytelling.

Each distinct voice was like a mask identity in itself. As if each identity could be known by its sound. It is no doubt true that in reality we do know a great deal about a person by how they sound. Emotion pours out of the sound of person’s voice.

My Learning

So here is what I have brought back out of mask and into my core being from telling ‘The Mouse Bride’.

1.   No matter what your size or life position, you can always believe in a positive future. Telling in Mouse mask taught me this.

2.   Inside, beauty and youth are still part of me. Making the second Princess mask and performing the story of the Mouse Bride in that mask and costume taught me this.

  

3.  There are many male personalities to interact with in daily life. Some have dominant strengths; others have dominant weaknesses. The voice qualities of the male characters in telling ‘The Mouse Bride’ taught me this.

4.   Finally, there are always friends who will help you. The 1,000 little mice dancing on their toes coming to help the Mouse-Princess taught me this.

Rita welcomes your comments on her series about 

‘The Mouse Bride’

She can be contacted at:

peterboroughstorytellers@cogeco.ca

THE STORY OF THE MOUSE AND THE PRINCESS MASK: PART TWO

By Rita Grimaldi

Making The Clothing For The Mouse Bride

In some science fiction stories, the hero crosses into another reality. As he crosses, he is automatically dressed as an inhabitant of that new reality.

I approached the telling of ‘The Mouse Bride’ in this way. I have a great desire to clothe both the Mouse mask and the Princess mask as they might be dressed in their story world.

  

Mouse in the story is an ordinary grey mouse. But I can’t turn myself into the size of a mouse or have mouse skin.

On top of this, Mouse and Princess are the same person - the Princess being transformed into the Mouse by a witch. So their dresses must mirror each other.

The Shape

I began to think about what shape the Mouse and Princess’ dresses could take. The audience must read each dress as follows: simplicity and small animal for the mouse; beauty and elegance for the Princess. I decide on a simple flowing tube-shape dress for each mask.

Choice of Materials

Grey was the necessary colour for Mouse - the story says that Mouse is a ‘little gray mouse’. So, in my collection of fabrics and precious sewing items, I found a piece of grey fabric for Mouse. And for Princess, I chose a fabric with velvet flowers embossed on it and a beautiful embroidered bird.

The Dresses

Here are the two dresses for Mouse (on the left) and the Princess (on the right).

The Headdresses

Because I can’t have the head of a mouse, I needed to have my head covered for the performance. And once again, the headdress for Mouse must have a mirror image in that worn by the Princess.

Here are the headdresses - Princess to the left, Mouse to the right.

  

Matching Features of the Headdresses

o   Both Princess and Mouse are the same shape.

o   Each headdress has white detail – lace for the Princess and rickrack for Mouse.

o   Mouse has a bow made of the material of the Princess’ dress sewn to the right side.

o   Both headdresses have deep gray colour in their construction.

Mask work requires the teller to enter into the story far more than in regular storytelling. Mask requires immersion on the part of the teller – giving up part of oneself to become the character in the story.

The clothing a mask wears helps me come into the being of the mask. In this case, Mouse’s clothing helped me be a small creature still believing in a positive future. Princess’ clothing helped me be an elegant and beautiful young Princess.

This is the magic of mask. In the plot of the written story, transformation happens through the power of an external person. But in the performed story, the masks and costumes invoke a transformation experience equally as powerful.

  

In Part Three, I will talk about

the transformation experience

of telling

‘The Mouse Bride’.