Master storytellers spin intriguing tales

In a sense, Jeff Gere has been a storyteller most of his life. Encouraged by his mother, who was a high school drama teacher, he performed in numerous school musicals and skits at community events when he was growing up as a "beach kid" in Southern California.

"Acting is the famous younger brother of the much older art of storytelling," said Gere, the longtime drama specialist for Honolulu’s Department of Parks and Recreation. "Storytelling is the most raw and powerful form of drama that I know. Something profound happens under the spell of storytelling. The listener imagines what is being told, and what results is communion, magic, impact, empathy. And it is great FUN!"

Gere received a bachelor’s degree in painting and art history from the University of California at Davis, and a master’s in performing arts from San Francisco State University.

Soon after completing his education, he jumped at the chance to be the caretaker of a 600-year-old villa near Florence, Italy.

"It was all-consuming work during the summer when the villa was filled with guests," Gere recalled, "but in the winter nobody was around, so I had time to devote to creative endeavors with friends. We were a touring group of seven with a theater style based on dreams, archetypes and folk tales. There was little narrative; music set the tone for the action, which was enhanced by masks, costumes, lighting, large props and puppets."

For inspiration the troupe read myths, folk tales, fairy tales and the works of eminent Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, an American author and teacher renowned in the field of comparative mythology. Gere earned extra money by telling the stories he most enjoyed at English-language schools.

Fast-forward to 2014. Gere is the founder of the Talk Story Festival, now in its 26th year. The oldest and largest storytelling event in Hawaii, it began with free programs that he presented for senior citizens at city parks. He told the kupuna stories, and they responded with stories of their own.

"Seniors are walking libraries of life," Gere said. "In 1987, when I landed my job, I was new to the islands, and they taught me so much about local history, culture and folklore through their wonderful stories. I would tell those stories to my family and friends, and after a few years I wanted to share them with a larger audience."

Gere launched the Talk Story Festival in 1989 as a way to honor Hawaii’s ancient and contemporary traditions of storytelling and oral history. Back then he had no budget and just one part-time assistant, but, amazingly, the inaugural event featured 50 volunteer storytellers on four stages over three full days.

In 2000 the Department of Parks and Recreation began supporting the festival with funding, publicity and staff. Today it spotlights more than a dozen local storytellers and a few from the mainland who, according to Gere, "sweeten the mix."

"I’ve been lucky to work with a core group of exceptional tellers who have a long history of giving their voices to this celebration," he said. "Every year I’m stunned at the power and beauty of their stories."

The festival has grown to be a first-class production, complete with sign interpreters for the deaf (who are expressive storytellers in their own right), dramatic lighting, quality audio and high-definition video projected beside the stage and later aired on ‘Olelo Community Television.

"The auditorium fills with 600 people, and there’s often only standing room in the back," Gere said. "All of the storytellers can grab and hold a crowd — a rare gift. They each spend 20 minutes onstage, which is long enough to deliver a memorable tale or two in their unique style. The program moves along nicely, and it’s so quiet — the audience is listening so intently — you can hear babies gurgling."

Stories are both fact and fiction — whatever the tellers decide to share. The theme on Friday is always SPOoOooKIES, and Gere asks performers that evening to "thrill and chill! This is not a kids’ show. The storytellers are sometimes concerned about freaking out the children, but I don’t want the adults to go home without chicken skin."

Among others, attendees will see University of Hawaii at Manoa graduate student Rachel Chapman bring the short story "The Vanishing Pumpkin" to life with the help of shadow puppets, and Ed Chevy, a talented deaf storyteller, recount Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher" in sign language (retired UH librarian Kevin Roddy will be on hand to voice the tale for the hearing audience).

On Saturday eight storytellers, including Gere, will present "Ka Mo‘olelo o Hi‘i­akaikapoliopele" ("The Epic Tale of Hi‘iakaikapoliopele") in a relay format, passing the narration from one to another. Including 375 chants, the saga about Pele, her lover Lohi‘au and her sister Hi‘i­aka originally appeared as a daily series in the Hawaiian-language newspaper Ka Na‘i Aupuni from January 1905 to November 1906. It is regarded as the most extensive version of the story ever documented, providing keen insights into Hawaiian dance, religion, healing arts, sacred places and social and religious practices.

A team led by UH Hawaiian-language professor Pua­kea Nogelmeier translated the story by Ho‘oulumahiehie, who was well versed in the traditions of his ancestors, into English and released it as a 500-page book in 2007. Nogelmeier gave Gere his blessing to share highlights as a collaborative effort at this year’s Talk Story Festival.

According to Gere, "Hi‘i­akaikapoliopele" has everything: romance, lust, jealousy, revenge, trials, bloodshed, mayhem and supernatural events played out by deities, demons, chiefs and commoners. Hula, chants and projected images from the book will enhance the performance, but the telling of the story will be the emphasis.

Gere, the consummate storyteller, is making sure of that. For more than 25 years, he has delighted and entranced keiki at city parks’ Summer Fun programs. "I commonly bump into kids who’ve been to my shows, and they say, ‘Hey, you’re the story man, yeah?’" he said. "I don’t know a better purpose for my life than that."

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.