VALERIE TUTSON is the founding member and executive director of Rhode Island Black Storytellers. The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities recently awarded Tutson with the Public Humanities Scholar Award for her work to educate and advance the civic and cultural life of Rhode Island. She will be honored at RICH’s Celebration of the Humanities on Oct. 5.
What influenced you to organize the Rhode Island Black Storytellers? Years ago, the Rhode Island Foundation had a program called “I’ll Make Me a World: Celebrating Black Arts and Artists in Community.” It was an initiative to create year-round programming in support of a video series made by the same folks who did “Eyes on the Prize,” and they were looking for communities around the country to develop local programming in support of the airing of that. Rhode Island Foundation put out a call.
I had been telling stories full time for almost 10 years then, and attending national storytelling festivals, including the National Black Storytelling Festival. I had also just come back from four and a half months in Africa and wanted to share the vibrancy of black storytelling here at home. I sat with Ramona Bass Kolobe at her kitchen table telling her I thought we could kick off the RIF year with a Black Storytelling Festival. We called together Len Cabral, Rochel Coleman, Raffini, Abigail Jefferson and Melodie Thompson, and the Rhode Island Black Storytellers was born.
The humanities bring together people of all backgrounds – how is this theme of shared values reflected in your work? How does storytelling harbor empathy? When we come together, each of us individuals are wrapped up in the web of the shared experience of story, we experience something together and for that time we are united. With storytelling, we have the incredible opportunity to know ourselves better, and through the listening to stories of others whose culture, experience and background [are] different from our own, we get to know our neighbors better. Sharing that experience together, I believe, creates empathy because story and the telling of story in a community provide a bridge across our differences to the place where we are most human.
What is the relationship between you, RIBS and the R.I. Council for the Humanities? I am a co-founder and executive director of RIBS and serve as director of Funda Fest: A Celebration of Black Storytelling, which will have its 20th anniversary in January 2018. As a storyteller myself, I have had the good fortune of receiving an Individual Research Grant, and RIBS has received support for various programs over the years, such as an oral history project when we hosted the National Black Storytelling Festival, and a grant to do storytelling with Oasis International, making connections between R.I. black history and more recent African immigrant experiences. RIBS has also been the fiscal agent for RICH programs presented by Anne Edmonds Clanton.
Can you speak on the performative aspect of storytelling? Storytelling is a full-body experience, even if the audience is simply listening. The audience will be called on to participate: to sing, to respond to a call, to move the body even. The storyteller is the conductor, all the instruments and the music, if you will. The drum, the drummer, the song and the dance, carefully paying attention to the rhythms, the tempo of the music, but also how the audience/dancer is responding. The storyteller’s job is to bring the listeners along for the journey. It is not a passive/spectator sport. When I was studying theater as I was following storytellers around, one of the things I loved about storytelling is the invitation and the challenge to play all the parts.
