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.