Life lessons Funda Fest 7 promises stellar stories BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

What is it about spoken-aloud stories that bind us together? They might be informal anecdotes at the office, enthusiastic narratives at family dinners, well-oiled routines by stand-up comics, or polished yarns by storytelling performers. In each case, they draw us in and engage us in picturing the events or the place or the people that are being described. Stories give form to the content of our days and history to the arc of our lives. They can open minds, lift spirits and heal hearts.

All this and much more will be abundantly evident at Funda Fest 7, organized by the Rhode Island Black Storytellers (RIBS) and beginning on Friday (January. 21) with two events, a family concert in Woonsocket and an "In House Freestyle" at the Multicultural Center at Johnson and Wales, and continuing through the wekeend, with all of Funda’s guest storytellers taking part in the Saturday storytelling concert at the RISD Auditorium (8 p.m.). Participating RIBS members are Len Cabral, Abigail Ifatola Jefferson, Raffini, Melodie Thompson Thomas, Valerie Tutson, and Rose Weaver. National guests will be Teju Ologboni from Milwaukee, who has brought his tapping drums and rapping words to Funda Fest several times before; Sierra Leonian Braima Moiwai from Durham, North Carolina; and Queen Nur from Willingboro, New Jersey.

Queen Nur grew up in Pennsylvania, studied criminal justice at Northeastern University and, in 1987, moved with her young family to Willingboro, just outside Philadelphia. It was there that her son’s kindergarten teacher asked her to do a story for the class and set her on the path to becoming a professional storyteller.

Queen Nur listened to stories from her grandmother when she was growing up, and she still pays close attention to the tales of her 97-year-old grandfather. She also seeks out folk tales and myths that spin a moral message around the problems encountered by the stories’ characters, be they human or animal.

"Stories go to a certain part of the brain," Queen Nur observes, in a phone conversation from her New Jersey home. "They are a way of passing on history and values. Stories for children can build self-esteem, without lecturing. Stories are a way of knowing who they are, where they come from — stories are such a magnificent way of doing that."

Braima Moiwai, on the phone from North Carolina, echoes those thoughts: "The Mende people believe stories are lessons to be learned. We had griots who traveled from community to community. You can listen and learn a song. You can listen and learn a proverb. And then you incorporate that into your life."

Moiwai is from a small village of the Mende, one of the 15 tribal groups in Sierra Leone, though his village, Bunumbu, was completely destroyed in the civil war that ravaged his country from 1991 through 2001. Moiwai came to North Carolina in 1986 and he’s made a life for himself as a storyteller, teaching school children in both Carolinas about the culture and customs of his native land.

Moiwai has been especially interested in the similarities between the African American Gullah people on the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia and their West African counterparts. He has been taking part in the Priscilla Project, whose goal is to bring a seventh-generation Carolina descendant of a young slave girl named Priscilla back to the country of her ancestor’s origin, Sierra Leone. While in Rhode Island, Moiwai will talk about the state’s important role in this project (the slave ship that brought Priscilla to South Carolina was owned and operated by the Vernon brothers of Newport).

Moiwai was the only one of his nine siblings to go to school, because his parents so mistrusted the colonialists in their land. But Moiwai also valued the lessons he learned at home, especially those in his grandmother’s stories: "She used stories to teach morals — if the frog in a story was doing most of the troubles I do, I’d recognize that and decide to change."

One of the classic stories of his childhood that he loves to share is of five baby birds who are abandoned by their mother and go in search of her. Many mother birds want to adopt them, but the baby birds realize that those mothers don’t speak the same language that their own mother did. To Moiwai, the story is about his grandmother reminding him, "No matter what, you have to remember where you come from — you never forget who you are and the community that raised you."

Queen Nur also honors her grandmother in her stories, particularly an urban African American adaptation she did of Little Red Riding Hood, titled "Ruth Oree’s Sweet Potato Pie." Another of the stories she likes to tell is one she wrote about a little girl titled "Adachi." This orphaned girl has three different aunts of three different religions, and she alternates weekends with them.

"It shows humanity and universality," Queen Nur points out. "It asks the question, ‘Can we look at each other as humans?’ Storytelling helps us to do that. Even when we’re steeped in our own culture and tradition, it helps us look at humanity as a whole and celebrate who we are."

Very much in the African tradition, both Queen Nur and Braima Moiwai accompany their stories with music. Yomi Jojolo will back up Queen Nur, and Moiwai will play drums and other instruments. Both stress interaction with their audiences, whether it be a direct call-and-response, a sing-a-long, or just intent listening.

"We feed from our audience," Queen Nur notes. "You see a reaction and it’ll change the tone or you might add something. The heart and the spirit of the story is what comes from the audience and that storyteller.

"When the children or the adults are using their imaginations," she continues, "a lot of times the references are coming from themselves, from their life. So what they’re hearing is a little bit of themselves and that’s very warming. And stories heal, sometimes when you don’t even know that they’re healing."

So open yourself to the possibilities at Funda Fest 7: rhythms and rhymes, laughter and tears, tapping old memories and sharing new ones. And that’s just some of what the art of storytelling is all about.

For more details on Funda Fest 7, call (401) 273-4013 or go to www.ribsfest.com.