Oral History Program Karla Huntsman Interviewed by Michael Thompson 23 March 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Karla Huntsman Interviewed by Michael Thompson 23 March 2021 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The WSU Storytelling Festival was implemented by the Friends of the Stewart Library in 1992. The library sponsored and managed the annual festival until 1998, when the festival was moved to the Department of Teacher Education, with the Library continuing as a sponsor. The three-day festival entails storytellers from all over the nation, including youth storytellers. The events are made up of workshops and presentations, a fund-raising banquet, and a wrap-up of wonderful stories from gifted performers. This interesting collection includes oral history interviews with visiting storytellers, discussing how they became interested in storytelling and where they receive their inspiration. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Huntsman, Karla, an oral history by Michael Thompson, 23 March 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Karla Huntsman Circa 2021 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Karla Huntsman, conducted on March 23, 2021, by Michael Thompson, via Zoom. In this interview, Karla discusses her life, her experiences during her storytelling career, and her memories of the Weber State University Storytelling Festival. MT: This is an oral history interview being conducted with Karla Huntsman on March 23, 2021, as part of an oral history project to document the history of The Weber State University Storytelling Festival. How did you become interested or involved in storytelling? KH: I have always loved stories. I was the kid under the bedsheets with a flashlight reading late into the night when my Mom thought I was asleep. I spent hours reading stories. In the sixth grade, I had a teacher, Mr. Dye, who encouraged us to WRITE stories. I have been totally hooked on story making from that moment on. In 2003, I was teaching a class at BYU—“Drama in the Elementary Classroom.” We had units in puppetry, narrative mime, process drama, and storytelling. The Chair of the Department came to me one day and told me there was an opening for a teacher of the Storytelling Class. I said “Yes!” Afterwards, I found out what a movement storytelling was in the country. I had no idea! People were going across the country making a living telling stories. I immediately joined the local Utah Storytelling Guild and the National Storytelling Guild. Then, I began offering storytelling programs in local elementary schools. 2 I’d been a theater artist for many years, but this was a new thing. The connection between teller and listener is very intimate. I simply fell in love with it. MT: That’s wonderful! I've been able to attend some storytelling festivals both at Weber and others. It's always fascinating to hear the storytellers and see how much they can engage the audience. KH: Storytelling is truly engaging! MT: How long have you been telling stories? You kind of already mentioned this. KH: Yeah, so probably actively telling since 2004, I would say. MT: Okay, so you are coming up on almost 20 years of active storytelling. KH: The years do go by, don’t they! MT: It probably has felt like time has flown. KH: It certainly does! MT: What part of storytelling brings you the most joy or satisfaction? KH: I'll answer that by telling a little story. I went to an elementary school to tell stories. I had been there a couple years before. When I was walking down the hall, one of the younger students pulled at my shirt. “Hey, you told us the story of the brave parrot in the burning forest.” Then, she repeated part of the story to me. It was exciting because it confirmed to me that story is the way we remember things. It was incredible to me that she remembered a story from two years before. There’s actually a lot of research to suggest that story is the mechanism through which the brain “thinks” and makes connections. I've been using “Covid Time” to digitize the journals I’ve been writing since I was twelve. The things I remember best and which have had the greatest impact on my life 3 are all related to story. Story does feed that part of the brain that thinks and feels and connects to all of life. MT: You mentioned that you've done storytelling at different elementary schools. Have you done storytelling with adult audiences as well? Which type of audience do you prefer, children or adults? KH: I love all ages and types of audiences. I really do. There are different “techniques” to be used with different audiences, but the connection is the same. For example, with preschoolers I do lots of character voices, hand motions that the children repeat, or bits of songs or repetitive phrases that they can call back to me. I also use puppetry with the younger children. Middle schoolers and teenagers are not going to be happy with doing things they consider “babyish,” so I don’t do the things I would do with a younger crowd. They don’t physically show their emotions as freely as a younger group. The way you know they are engaged is that they are listening! Family audiences, adult audiences, and senior audiences all have different needs and require different types of engagement. I suppose some tellers have preferences as to which group they prefer, but honestly, I really love telling to all groups. Some tellers particularly don’t like to tell to pre-schoolers, but I actually really love this group. MT: You’re the second person I've interviewed that actually has said they love telling stories to preschoolers. KH: Oh my goodness. It is honestly so much fun! MT: What are the qualities of a good storyteller? 4 KH: I think I’ve come to the conclusion that if a teller is authentic to their own style and personality, they’ll probably be effective. Styles of telling and storytellers are as varied as there are storytellers. Some tellers are very animated and use their voices and bodies a lot; others do not. Some are wildly hilarious; some are not. But, if a teller is authentic to who they are--so that's number one--and has something they want to say through story, that always seems to come through. So, I think the qualities of an effective storyteller are: being authentic, having a story they want to express, being able to structure the story so that it makes sense—so that it's so compelling that people really want to listen. An effective teller has to have passion for this art. If they do love this art and can structure a story and be themselves, they’ll probably be very good. MT: That's great advice. What elements are required for a good story? KH: As I mentioned in the last question, it does have to be structured. When we're telling to our friends, we may meander and include lots of bits of story that don’t have particular relevance to the story we’re telling and out of the goodness of their hearts, our friends listen to us. But I think an effective story has to have some kind of through line through which everything attaches. If there's meandering, it has to be “meaningful” meandering and important in some way to the arc of the story. Doug Lipman says that a teller has to determine what is the MIT—or most important thing—and add details which add to that most important thing. Also, a meaningful story has to have characters that people can identify with, and it must have appeal to our senses—sight, hearing, taste, touch, small, and kinesthetics. There are, of course, different “requirements” for different types 5 of stories—a humorous, tall tale requires something different than a healing story. But the story must be put together well and must be engaging to the audience. We don't want to bore people with story. MT: What impact do you think our current pandemic environment has had on the importance of storytelling? KH: I think people that have known how important storytelling is have continued to know how important it is. But I think it has impacted storytelling in another huge way. And maybe this does relate to the importance of storytelling. Virtual story tellings are popping up everywhere. I'm seeing people from India, and Sweden, and all kinds of places that I would never have seen before. Virtual tellings are here to stay! We will get back eventually to live storytelling, which is optimal of course. But I think these virtual trends are going to stay. And maybe that will increase people's understanding of how important storytelling is if they are exposed to what it is. Probably a lot of people haven't really seen storytelling, like my husband before he married me. "Storytelling? What is that? What do you do?" And I think a lot of people are like that. So maybe storytelling has spread via media—and perhaps that has helped people understand more deeply how important it is. This has been an adjustment time for all of us, for sure! MT: Building on that, where do you see storytelling in the future? You've mentioned virtual is here to stay. Do you see anything else developing? KH: I think storytelling will continue to grow. I REALLY love the Weber State Festival. The combination of children, local talent, and national talent is something unmatched anywhere. I think it’s a fantastic festival. We also see home grown 6 festivals, conferences, and events like what Rachel Hedman is doing with Story Crossroads—and certainly we have the Timpanogos Festival, which will continue to grow. In addition to festivals and conferences, we are seeing story used in increasingly powerful ways in fields other than direct storytelling. We are seeing people use story in business, healing, education, family history, and many personal ways. I think people are understanding the power of story in every aspect of our lives. So I suspect it will continue to grow, and like I said, virtual telling will be a thing. I think it will be here to stay. MT: How long have you been involved with the Weber State University Storytelling Festival? KH: When I first started storytelling, I came and told for Weber State. Then we moved to Las Vegas. I’ve been in Las Vegas until just this last August when we came back. As I mentioned before, I really love the Weber Festival! I watched every single story told at this year’s festival and was inspired, touched, and moved by the stories. The children’s tellings were simply amazing. The children were authentic—not trying to be somebody else. I loved their exuberance, their vocal expressions, body movements and as I said before, their authenticity. I felt so much joy listening to these children. I also loved seeing the regional tellers and of course, loved all the four national tellers who came. Each of national tellers brought something rich and dynamic—Motoko, with her tale of the giant, and all of the things that she put into that, her movement, her voice was just astounding; Sam Payne with his music, Ed with his lovely sense of humor, Simon Brooks with his characterizations. I think each of them brought something really 7 spectacular. I think the Weber Festival is such a rich combination of national, regional, local people that its' kind of an anomaly—a wonderful anomaly—in the world of storytelling. And I see only growth happening with it. It was a privilege to be part of it this year. MT: I've enjoyed seeing the kids' stories as well. That's so fascinating, my son loves telling stories, so I'd love to get him involved. KH: Oh you should! That would be fantastic. MT: He is very animated and loves making up his own stories. KH: Oh, yes! Next year! MT: Are there any other memories of the festival that you want to share? Any favorite memories? KH: So many times watching these stories, I was moved to laughter, to tears, to understanding. It's just been a rich experience. There were so many moments! So many favorites!! MT: What advice would you give to future storytellers? KH: Do it! Just get out there! I think you can read and read and read about storytelling, but until you're faced with an audience, it’s theory. If you're doing an assembly, you're faced with an audience and you have to engage 350 kids—from preschool to fifth grade. You learn really quickly what you need to do. And that kind of learning you just can't read in a book. Books are helpful, but I think the doing it is more important. Watching other tellers and going to workshops is very important, also—not to copy another teller, but to observe what “works.” The greatest “AHA! moment of my life came while attending a workshop by national 8 teller, Antonio Rocha. He talked about three places for the eyes to be while telling a story. One, directly at the audience. We pretty much know we need to look at our audience and we probably all do that. We know our eyes need to focus to the back, to the front, to the sides and to look into people’s eyes long enough so that they know they have made a connection with you. The second place is to look at “the other character” when we are in dialogue. We’re not looking directly at the audience then. And three, and this is when my “Aha” moment came. Antonio said that: "The third place to look is at the story” where you are actually seeing a movie of the story as it's taking place. You're seeing it on the sides, above the audience’s heads, and then you come back to them. But you're actually seeing the story. I think before that workshop, I was trying to see the story as I was looking into the eyes of the audience. They are two different things. They're really two different things. So, yeah, workshops are great if there's a workshop that has that kind of information in it. But, I would say just watching other tellers and telling would be my two primary ways of really increasing your skills and talents as a storyteller. MT: Thank you so much for your time, it's been wonderful interviewing you and hearing about your experience as a storyteller. I hope that you are able to come back in future festivals. KH: I would love that! MT: Oh good. Thank you again.