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会報『太陽と月の詩」2008年112号より掲載します

物語は、そのお話の精霊たちと共に語られる！
―ウィム・ウォルブリンクさんのワークショップ―

日高市　曲田晴美

ニューヨークに摩天楼が建設された頃、三百メートルも上空の鉄骨の上で仕事をする作業員たちは、
皆先住民族たちだったのだそうです。
彼らは、自分の中に蓄えられた自分の力を頼み、自分を守ってくれている精霊を信じていました。
私たち語り手も自分の中に蓄えられた物語と物語の精霊たちの加護を信じて語ろう！と、
床に引かれた二本の線を飛越えてワークショップは始まりました。
次いでステップを踏んで踊りながら一人一人名乗り、全員英語で歌いながら左右の人・前後の人を感じて、
歌と同様に物語も、物語りの精霊たちと共に在ることを知りました。
また、お手玉投げ・棒なげのゲームをとおしてアイコンタクトを学びながら、
背後にも意識を分散し、物語世界全体を感じながら話す訓練をしました。
前方ばかり気にしても駄目、自分の中ばかり見つめて自分の話を放出するだけも駄目。
聞き手と語り手が、物語を共有するための意識分散を学んだのです。
物語が生まれる場を実感し、スリル満点のわらべうた遊びをし、
お話を四つの要素に分解したり、絵巻物風に絵に描いたり、
最後に一人一人自分の語り口で語り、また聞き合うことで、納得の行く物語に仕上げることができたのです。
目一杯の一日でしたが、少しも疲れず、楽しく遊べて、充実したワークショップでした。
未だ興奮さめやらぬ私です。

(Jul. 29, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20080729TDY18004.htm

Dutch storyteller engages listeners' imaginations
Keiko Watanabe / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

What happens when a dying villain seeks help from his former victim?
Or when a widower realizes that his wife is still alive?
Or when a brother learns that his brother has betrayed him?
You could ask Dutch storyteller Wim Wolbrink, but he would probably throw the questions right back at you.
At a highly interactive lecture at a public hall in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, earlier this month,
Wolbrink explained that storytelling is a participatory medium,
one in which listeners must use their imaginations as much as the storyteller does.
"First people are [merely] receptive. But, as you can see, it's so nice to see the participants get involved with the energy of a story,"
he said during a break.
Although titled as a lecture, Wolbrink's presentation did not allow the audience just to sit quietly and listen.
At one point he had them singing in polyphonic fashion and later asked them to present ideas about
how a story he had introduced should end.
This is the fourth annual summer tour of Japan for Wolbrink, who has been telling stories for more than 10 years.
He first arrived in Japan in 2005 and mainly through word of mouth his vocation quickly gained popularity.
This year, he is touring the country for two months, giving lectures, performances and seminars at schools, temples and community halls.
Wolbrink, who studied to be an anthroposophical teacher at a Steiner college in the Netherlands, trained in storytelling at Emerson College in England.
He also cofounded a school of storytelling in Netherlands.
He tells stories in English and Dutch. In Japan, he gives performances and lectures in English,
usually with the assistance of an interpreter, but his recent lecture was in English only.
Wolbrink said 90 percent of the stories he presents are old folktales.
"I tell them in their original form. And 10 percent need some changes.
The traditional oral stories have so much power and [have been] crafted through time," he said.
From the start, Wolbrink tries to break down the barrier between himself and the audience.
"One thing already happened. Aki-san [Akie Kanazono, the organizer of the lecture] asked the people over there,
'Please come to the front.' What is important in storytelling is being together.
One thing I did when I entered this room was to remove the desk, because storytelling is people to people,"
said Wolbrink, adding that convenient modern equipment such as ticket vending machines can deprive people of the personal touch.
Wolbrink then invited the audience to join in a singing session.
He wrote the lyrics of the following song on the board behind him:

Mother morning I will leave you
I must go to gather the light
Mother evening I will return to you
Safely held in the arms of night

While the audience sang the song, he encouraged them to stand firmly on the floor and breath properly, using their diaphragms.
Wolbrink puts great stress on breathing.
"When I teach, I'm fairly aware of natural breath...Teaching is to make people to breath properly," he said.
He also said during the break that Japanese audiences often sit rather stiffly when he tells a story.
"A bit more movement would be very helpful for Japanese people in communication," he added.
The session apparently was aimed at dragging his audience out of their seats
and getting them to use their voices and breathe deeply.
Wolbrink said the song itself was a story.
"I--the main character--said he or she must leave home. You leave, going out into the world.
You don't know what is going to happen. Maybe an accident, or meeting someone you don't know.
And you go back. But when you go back, something may have changed.
And the next morning everything starts again. And you can see here, we've got a large circle," Wolbrink said, drawing a large circle on the board.
He then divided the audience into small groups and asked them: "Where do we see circles?"
Within three minutes, the audience had given such free-associative answers as life, season, year, moon, wheel, reincarnation and love.
Before Wolbrink launched into his storytelling performance, he took up a tenor recorder and played an introductory melody,
which seemed to have the plaintive tone of a shakuhachi.
The story he chose was an old Moroccan folktale involving a woman and her husband, a pilgrim, the pilgrim's elder brother, a judge.
The audience listened raptly as the story unfolded.
In the tale, the husband decides to go on a pilgrimage, so he asks his elder brother to look after his wife.
When the pilgrim has left, the judge asks the woman to let him into her house, but she refuses.
The judge becomes furious and falsely accuses the woman of being a prostitute.
She is sentenced to death by stoning in the market square.
The women is left for dead but she actually survived the stoning.
A person from another village finds her, takes her back to his village and cares for her until she recovers.
Years later, she discovers that she now has the mysterious power heal any illness through the power of speech.
Meanwhile, the pilgrim returns to his village and learns that his wife has been stoned to death.
He also finds that his brother has become seriously ill. Although deeply shocked by his wife's death,
the pilgrim wants to help his ailing brother, so he urges him to see a woman in another village who apparently can cure any illness through the power of speech.
He does not realize that the woman is his own wife.
When the story reached the point at which the two men arrive at the door of the woman healer, Wolbrink paused.
The Dutch storyteller then asked the audience to form groups of three or four people and prepare short presentations on how they thought the story turned out.
They formed five groups that spent about 20 minutes discussing the story ending.
The results were surprising. Each group came up with a different ending.
One of the groups used small finger puppets to make their presentation, while another acted the ending out in theatrical form.
After the presentation, Wolbrink said,
"When you work in small groups, there is a lot of concentration, lot of joy and lot of freedom."
He compared stories to movies.
He said when people go to a movie theater, they sit down and receive the images passively.
In contrast, storytelling--and reading books--allows people to use their own imagination to create images.
"You can create your own personal connection with a story," he said.
After that, Wolbrink provided the traditional ending to the Moroccan story
in which the woman demands that the judge confess his past wrongdoings and when he does, he is cured.
The audience was also asked to reflect on the development of the three characters.
He then returned to the circle.
"Every one of us can tell a story of a difficult moment of life, the depths--being fired, or being divorced or in an illness.
What we see in stories and in our lives is that we go down to the depths and go up again.
And when you go up, you have something extra, you are healed and stronger," he said.
Why do most of the stories have happy endings?
Wolbrink explained: "The most important message is:
Don't worry, you could get out, you'll feel better and that life is beautiful, please embrace life.
So many young people have problems and they don't know how to deal with them.
I have much more to say about this circle of storytelling and the message behind it."

Wolbrink will perform on Aug. 2 at Toyama Nohgakudo hall and Shinkokuji temple in Toyama and lecture at the hall on Aug. 3; perform on Aug. 8 at Tsuda Umeko Hall in Kodaira, Tokyo; lecture on Aug. 9, hold two-day workshops from Aug. 9 and from Aug. 11, a three-day workshop from Aug. 15 and perform on Aug. 16 at Open Forum Waseda, Tokyo. For more details, visit www.werder.jp/. To learn more about Wolbrink, visit www.werder.nl/.