Ham it up

Storyteller entertains all ages at area libraries

By Matt Flumerfelt

VALDOSTA — If someone had told her as a child that she could grow up to become a professional storyteller, Donna Washington said that she would have answered, “No way.” Back then, she wanted to be a lawyer.

“The way I look at it, I didn’t get to be a lawyer, but I still get paid to lie,” she joked.

Her performance at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Library on Woodrow Wilson Drive on Tuesday was her first appearance there in two years. Earlier in the day she performed at the Salter Hahira Library and the McMullen Southside Library.

Washington said storytelling is the only job she’s ever had. She has been a professional storyteller for 21 years. She recently returned from a storytelling tour of Peru and said she is glad to be back in the U.S. where language barriers don’t get in the way of the story.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colo., Washington was an Army brat and traveled all over the world with her parents, according to her Web site. She said her father would sit at the dinner table and spin the wildest yarns imaginable. He taught her Arthurian legend and Greek mythology by telling the stories in the first person. She thought he had actually been with Merlin and Oedipus and must be thousands of years old.

Washington spent about five years — from the second to the sixth grade —in Seoul, Korea. It was during these years that her parents adopted three Amerasian children. Through it all, she said she learned about different people and places and, of course, their stories. She attended Northwestern University and was involved in numerous theatrical productions. It was at this time that storytelling reemerged as something she wanted to learn more about. In her four years at Northwestern, she began to make storytelling a central part of her performance life.

“Every story I tell is true, except the parts I make up,” she said.

It’s because of her imagination and seemingly limitless creativity that Washington was selected to be this summer’s featured children’s performer for the South Georgia Regional Library System’s Summer Reading Program. Her exuberant telling of folktales from around the world kept Tuesday’s audience laughing.

Washington said she learns many of her stories by word of mouth. When people find out she’s a storyteller they often say, “Oh, I have a story for you.” Most of her stories are based on folklore and range from folktales to personal narrative to short stories to short sayings and poetry. The only stories she doesn’t tell are “lying” stories. Lying is a genre of story in which the tellers compete to see who can craft a good lie, she said. She also doesn’t tell stories from any of the world’s living religions.

Washington told three stories at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Library Tuesday: “The Tiger, the Man, and the Mouse,” “Ticki Ticki Tembo” (in which a tongue twister is woven into the narrative) and “The Monkey’s Heart.” Her signature story — the one for which she is best known — is “The Exploding Frog.”

Washington’s stories feature lots of sound effects, wild animal noises, voices and descriptive gestures and faces. In other words, she puts herself in the story.

Washington said she doesn’t practice making animal noises and expressions at home. Instead she make gestures or sounds based on what the characters in the story would be feeling.

“It’s less important to look like a monkey than to feel like one,” she said.

She thinks of storytelling as funneling the story. She likes it when kids draw pictures based on her stories — instead of drawing pictures of her, they draw characters or events from the story. That means they were really into the story and not just watching her, she said.

The kids who will lead the way into the next century will be those who can dream in three dimensions, she said. Storytelling helps stimulate kids’ imaginations and their power to visualize.

“You don’t get that with any other medium,” she said, “not even theater.”

Washington’s stories can be downloaded from her Web site at donnawashington.com. Clips of her storytelling can also be seen on YouTube. Washington has authored numerous children’s books, including “A Pride of African Tales,” “The Story of Kwanzaa,” and “A Big Spooky House.” She’s also a prize-winning recording artist. Her first independent recording, “Live and Learn: The Exploding Frog and Other Stories,” received a 2002 Parent’s Choice Award.

To learn more about South Georgia Regional Library System programs, visit www.sgrl.org/ or call (229) 333-0086.

ON THE WEB

www.sgrl.org

www.donnawashington.com