What use are stories?

I haven’t blogged for over a year for lots of reasons. One reason (joyfully) is that I have been juggling numerous different projects, and taking time to reflect on them hasn’t been high on my list of priorities, however crucial doing so should be. I’ll try to do better.

Another reason is that I’m struggling a lot with my purpose as an artist at the moment. I love my work, I love storytelling and running workshops, working up and down the country and in lots of different places. But things are hard right now.

I’ve been involved in climate breakdown protests and sometimes they make me feel as if being a storyteller – someone who can bear witness, who can make sense of the past in the present and create new stories of hope – is the only thing I can do. I have to be truthful and to keep fighting, and to use art to make good things happen in the world. I’ve told stories at these protests and, when I do, the old stories that have sat with me for so long change their meaning. They become angrier, they’re a call to arms, and they prove that they still have something important to say in this changing world.

But there are other times when I feel as if I should be focusing only on useful, impactful activism. I should stop working a job that splits my focus a million different ways and instead do something simpler that means I can put my energy solely into trying to make the world a better place.

Because being a freelance storyteller isn’t a simple occupation, and I often find it drains me so much that I don’t have the energy to be as politically or socially engaged as I want to be, or as environmentally responsible. I travel a lot for work. I drive almost everywhere, because public transport is so expensive and mostly it doesn’t even go to some of the more remote and rural places that I work.

I’m also lucky enough that I’m starting to get offered international opportunities. I’m going to Milan next month to kick off a project that will be exploring Welsh and Occitan folklore. In February, I’ve been invited back to China to direct another Shakespeare play. These are all incredible opportunities (and ones that, sadly, are becoming rarer in the UK). But, as a result, I can’t ignore the fact that my carbon footprint is huge.

I’m trying to counter this by eating vegetarian, switching to a green energy provider and using my car as little possible when I’m not working away from home. But, of course, it feels as if I’m sticking a tiny plaster over a great gaping wound. Some European work, of course, I can travel to by train, but the difference in price between train and plane tickets is agonising. Most arts companies can’t afford to pay upwards of £300.00 for return train tickets when a plane ticket costs £40.00 and I can’t afford to subsidise it with my wages.

So, while my work as a storyteller sits deeply in my heart, I worry about whether I should be doing something else, something more responsible, something that has more impact. What use is storytelling when things are collapsing?

The answer that I’ve been given by gentle artist friends is that, in times like this, storytellers are needed more than ever. But, if I’m honest, I am struggling with that right now.

I want to know if other artists are facing the same conflict. If you are, what conclusions have you come to? Or do we just keep questioning, and debating, and weighing up pros and cons?

So, to the past year of work. Since my last post, I feel a lot of my “bread and butter” work has remained fairly constant: I’ve worked with a lot of schools and told stories in lots of festivals and museums.

• Collaborated on a number of new schools projects, including an inspiring Human Rights & Storytelling project with a Year 8 group where we challenged ourselves to “Use Our Voices”.
• Performed at my first international festival, Alden Biesen Festival in Belgium. The best part of my time in Belgium was meeting so many other storytellers from Europe and hearing stories in many different languages. I also got to stay in this actual castle with actual bats.

 

• Worked on a brilliant commission for Green Squirrel, The Girl Who Wouldn’t Give Up (Y Ferch Na Fyddai’n Ildio Byth). We’ve adapted an old Welsh myth with an environmental theme, written a film script, created two versions of the story in Welsh and English and I’m currently in the process of developing a performance version, to be performed in November at the Wales Millennium Centre. More information can be found here.
• Travelled to Switzerland to run Shakespeare workshops by Lake Geneva for a week and eat far too much cheese.
• Taken on a new, incredible part-time role as Engagement Co-ordinator for Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival.
• Become a panel member for Chwedl, the Welsh women storytellers network.
• Built up a great little regular audience with my co-Hag, Polly Tisdall, for our STORYPUB at the Greenbank, Bristol.
• Finished one novel, and written half of another.

And, finally…

• Got married! To the best person in the world! We married in Co. Donegal in May, surrounded by our friends and families, and it was the most joyful and intense day of my life.

 

I don’t know what the next year will bring. I am hoping that the stories I tell will help to make me a kinder and more empathetic person, too, so that I can work out where I’m at my best.