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BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ
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Len Cabral, as he put it, was all "about fun" when he was growing up in North Providence. He played football in high school, went to Germany with the Army, and ran an antiques store on Wickenden Street in the early ’70s. But it was his work with kids at a Fox Point daycare center that tugged at his heart, and by 1977, he was beginning to channel that love into a full-time career as a storyteller. In the mid-’80s, he joined with other Rhode Island storytellers to form the Spellbinders, and in 1989, they founded the Jonnycake Storytelling Festival in South County. In 1984, Cabral was invited to perform at the Smithsonian’s Discovery Theater for three weeks, for busloads of children from the DC and Baltimore area. Nine years later, he took his stories to Bill Clinton’s first Inaugural, where he shared them with hundreds of families under a tent on the Mall. Cabral has spun tales about crafty spiders ("Anansi"), clever bayou boys ("Wiley and the Hairy Man"), and his own mischievous childhood chums. His repertoire consists of more than 120 stories, with perhaps 70 ready for telling at a moment’s notice. Cabral travels across the country and the state to present his tales and his knowledge about telling them. His destinations include schools, libraries, theaters, and storytelling and music festivals, including the National Storytelling Festival. This year, he will be one of the featured tellers at the National Black Storytelling Festival, which comes to Providence on November 12 through 16. Q: How did you get into storytelling as a career? A: I met a lot of artists through Providence Inner City Arts, including Marilyn Meardon. We formed the Sidewalk Storytellers and started working in inner-city daycare centers. Our very first play, on a nutrition education grant, was "The Mean Queen Would Eat No Green." Eventually, the teachers said, "Do you have anything for the older kids?" [We answered], "Of course, we do — storytelling and creative writing." So we developed three plays for the older kids about the environment and better treatment of each other, as well as domestic and wild animals. Then we did an anti-smoking play with fourth and fifth graders, and we went wild with that one. Q: About this time you started doing stories at the libraries around the state, too? A: Yes, Marilyn, myself, Bill Harley, Marc Levitt, Ramona Bass, Sparky Davis. That’s when we all met each other and started working with one another and honing our skills. Then Bill and I went to the National Storytelling Festival in Tennessee in ’80 or ’81, and we came back and said, "Okay, people are doing this. Let’s go do it." Q: You still do a lot of your work with kids. Is it hard to sell adults on listening to stories? A: America has an attention-span problem. People watch TV. For music videos, it’s every two seconds the image changes. Or even if you’re watching movies, the image changes every four, five seconds. So people want short sound bites. Coming to listen to a storyteller is a commitment — it’s hard work listening. I hand it to children when they sit there and listen for 45, 50 minutes, and not budge, and be so focused and so engaged. A lot of that is because the performer is engaging them. But they’re working. It’s hard work — the imagery that they’re creating. When I to go high schools, I know these kids I’m telling stories to have been watching TV every day of their life, playing video games, Game Boys. But yet you sit in front of them to tell them a story and they’re . . . [Cabral’s eyes widen into a mesmerized gaze and his jaw drops]. That’s the power of storytelling and the spoken word — how we’re connected to humanity, what’s between us. With adults, they want instant gratification. They drive fast, they talk fast. They haven’t allowed themselves to get into a storytelling zone where you’re catching those images and hanging on the words. Q: Don’t people tell each other stories, in family settings? A: Parents are often asked to tell a story, and they say, "I can’t think right now. I’ll read one to you." So I ask them a question: "Okay, how many of the people in this room ever got bit by a dog?" Three-quarters of the people in the room raise their hand. Now that’s a story. "How many of you almost got bit by a dog, but you ran fast enough so that you didn’t get bit? That’s a story with a happy ending!" They laugh and nod. "How many have ever stepped on a nail? Slammed the car door on your own finger? How many ever cut yourself and had to go to the hospital to get stitches?" If I do this in a high school, three-quarters of the kids raise their hands. "How many got stitches?" Half of them. "How many didn’t get stitches but probably should have?" The other half. That’s called a scar story. When I work with adults, I ask them, "Scars? Tonight, if your kid asks you to tell them a story, tell them how you got this [points to scar near his elbow]." Q: What happens when people no longer tell each other stories? A: This is the generation that has the earphones on, sitting at a computer. There’s no dialogue going on. And then you can see the disconnect in society. You see cruel things happen and you say, "How could they do that?" Somebody takes advantage of an old woman. My gosh, didn’t you have a grandmother? They don’t hear enough grandmother stories. It’s important to listen to elders, because the elders have the stories. My grandparents used to tell us about the Depression. They [kids today] can read about it in a book, but it’s so different when they can learn first-hand about it. Q: What about your telling of traditional tales? When did that happen? A: Right from the very beginning. When I started getting into storytelling, I started reading a lot of folktales from West Africa and the Caribbean. Then I had stories that came from Cape Verde — I’d heard those from family and friends in the family. I started telling a lot of those. Folk tales from other cultures. I grew up in a community that was very diverse. A lot of Armenians, a lot of Bulgarians, Italians, Portuguese, Cape Verdeans, a French family. Pretty well mixed. And they all came from the old country. All of my friends, either their parents or their grandparents, came from the old country. Now I was about 15 years old, and I still thought the old country was a place where all these "old" people came from. Q: What kind of Cape Verdean stories did you hear? A: Here’s one that came down in the family. My mother’s mother was a midwife in Cape Verde. Someone knocked on her door and said, "Come." She followed her right down to the ocean. She took her under the water and she was able to breathe. She helped a mermaid give birth. After she was done, they took her back to the shore and gave her something. My mother said it was like cow shit or she thought it was. They said, "Don’t open it until you get home." But as she walked home, she threw it away. Later she realized it was treasure, it was gold, it was good fortune. My mother said, "That’s why we’ve always been working so hard." Q: Did you always love words and reading? A: In high school, I was a real jock. I played football. I spent more time in the gym and the locker room than I did in the library. But my English teacher made us read aloud and made us recite Macbeth. It was like the best thing [his voice gets intense], and I’d take it to the football field, and I’d quote Macbeth. I’d play linebacker and my buddy was playing defensive end. And we’d say, "Would that you had done this?", or, "Never shake thy gory locks at me." Q: What separates storytelling from theater? A: Theater is that you have that fourth wall [turns sideways to separate himself]. I’m doing this and you’re observing. Storytelling — I need the listeners and their energy. You affect my story by the way you go "Mmmmm," or start breathing in unison. With theater, you don’t affect it. In storytelling, we form a circle [Cabral spreads his arms in a huge arc] and we’re sharing. Q: So, stories are important to us all. A: Absolutely. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to make my living doing something I love doing. I feel it’s so important that we look into children’s eyes and talk to them. When I’m telling stories and I’m doing a 45-minute performance, I can look, and I should look, into every child’s eyes in that room a few times. I might be the only adult that day that looks them in the eye and doesn’t bark orders at them. Q: What’s your favorite story? A: The one I just told, or the one I’m gonna tell next.
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