Bishop storytelling event preserves verbal tradition

Bloomington resident Nic Newby got on the Bishop’s stage Saturday night to tell a crowd of people about the time he almost burned a hotel down trying to cook on a band tour.

It was just one tale from the Bloomington Storytelling Project’s event.

Storytellers and listeners gathered for the event.

People recollected their best or worst experiences with music.

Stories varied from the development of the music scene in Bloomington to strange memories of old band tours.

The Bloomington Storytelling Project began in 2009, fueled by the passion of oral tradition.

Dan Stevenson, who is part of a team that oversees the storytelling events and produces material for WFHB-FM 91.3, said his friend Laura Grover started the project about five years ago.

“It is a novelty,” Stevenson said. “There are other groups around, but it is nice to have this.”

Over the years, people in the Bloomington community volunteered to help preserve the oral tradition.

Some people have used the presence of an audience to improve themselves or their storytelling methods.

Mia Beach, host of Saturday’s storytelling event, said she became involved about three years ago.

“It was a show-and-tell event where we all brought in objects and told stories about them,” she said. “I did it as an exercise in getting rid of my stage fright.”

Each storytelling event has a theme, and all people are encouraged to participate.

“We try not to be exclusive,” Beach said. “We try to be inclusive. So we pick a theme, and we promote it, and the first eight to 10 people to respond are the ones we pick.”

“Full Moon Trance Dance,” a story told by WFHB music director Jim Manion, was about Bloomington’s music scene and how it changed through the years.

He described how the bars reacted to new music genres in the 1980s.

Manion recalled one night in particular when a collection of bands brought a bunch of people together who were ready to experience the different styles of music.

“Eight-hundred people came between the hours 9 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.,” Manion said. “It was zero degrees that night.”

He said he was in a band called the Quacks Pistols at the time.

“It was my first band that I was in that I joined in the DIY spirit of punk music,” Manion said.

The Bloomington Storytelling Project records and presents certain stories through WFHB on a half hour program called “The Porch Swing.”

All stories, more than 200 of which have been archived according to Stevenson, have potential of being aired on “The Porch Swing.”

“As a person that is drawn to stories, it keeps our youth alive,” Stevenson said.
“It keeps us interested in each other. It keeps us interested in the myth of one another.”