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Creating
something fantastic: the healing power of stories But that's not how a woman from Brooklyn finds her true path. Simms was years out of college before she discovered storytelling as her calling. Deeply involved in theater, dance and Jungian psychology, she had also been telling stories for a decade when she realized this activity embodied many of the things she cared about most. "I thought, here's an art form that is akin to traditional ritual," Simms explained, "that can heal communities, bring people together, connect people to the past and be as exciting as a full theatrical production." Since the late 1960s, Simms has explored the power of story as a live performer, recording artist, writer and teacher. Recently, she has pursued her mission to heal, connect and excite in a more direct way, using storytelling to aid people in crisis. As founder and director of the New York-based Gaindeh Project, Simms last year launched "Coming Home," an intergenerational storytelling program created to help victims of poverty and war. Gaindeh, from the West African Mende language, means "the first rays of sun in the morning." Inspired by an experience telling stories in Sierra Leone under United Nations sponsorship, Simms had been brewing the idea in her mind for several years. "But after 9/11, I was jolted awake to the fact that I should do it now and not wait any longer," she said. "The situation in the world was urgent. There were more and more young people who were dislocated, abandoned, traumatized -- here as well as in other countries." Simms wanted to develop model storytelling programs that could be replicated in different parts of the world. Last year, she started "Coming Home" with 16 children, ages 12 to 17, from four Romanian orphanages. Very often, these children live in dormitories with crumbling walls and little beauty, she said. Most of their caretakers have too little training or time to give them loving attention.
Children in this situation "give up hope," Simms said. "They don't have a structure of mind that says, ÔI have a viable future and can become a strong and independent person.'" When they leave their institutions, many end up on the streets, abusing drugs and dying young. By telling stories with children and adults, and teaching them to share stories with others, Simms hoped to nourish vision, courage and strength, so the children could imagine themselves building rich lives. She wanted them to "see themselves like a character in one of the fairy tales who has been abandoned, or like a Cinderella character -- but who ends up, because of their obstacles, creating something fantastic in their lives."
In Romania, Simms teamed with local professionals and activists, including an actor who works with street children, a therapist, members of the writers' union and orphanage staff. In June 2002, the adults took the children to the city of Iasi, where they spent four days playing theater games, listening to stories, retelling them and creating their own. The therapist translated for Simms, who spoke no Romanian at the time. The group then took off for Malini, a traditional village in Moldavia, where the children lived with local families. They spent several weeks listening to, reconstructing and making up stories, going on trips and getting to know their new neighbors. "Every peasant family vied to make a huge picnic lunch for all the kids and us," Simms said. Simms had hoped villagers would share Romanian folk tales, but after two world wars and decades of Communist rule, those traditions had faded. Local children joined the visiting storytellers, though, and after a while, "people began to remember things," she said. "A flute player, a dancer, a weaver and a woman who knew a lot of poems all started coming out of the woodwork." Simms returned to Romania in September, telling stories to large groups at the four orphanages. Although the process is slow, she found storytelling is weaving its way into some of the children's lives. At one institution, a staff member who is also a painter has children there illustrate the tales she tells. At another, a storytelling club meets once a week. Not all the children in the program have continued telling stories. But the experience has helped them become "more forthright," Simms observed. "And they know somebody cares about them." One girl who entered the program was very quiet and withdrawn and hardly spoke to anyone, she recalled. But this girl loved listening to stories and kept "the most beautiful journal of all," said Simms. "And when I went back, I saw that she spoke up and was forthright and kept her notebook the whole time. She came immediately to show it to me and to talk about wanting to go to school in the future." Another girl used to express herself by kicking and cursing. Now she says she wants to become a policewoman and "go around from orphanage to orphanage and make certain the adults are taking care of the children," Simms said. Simms will return to Romania in July. She is also laying plans for two more programs. In Sierra Leone, she will try to link local adults who know traditional stories with teenagers who are victims of civil war. In South India, Simms and another American storyteller will help elders share stories with children. Closer to home, Simms spearheaded the publication of Stories to Nourish the Hearts of Our Children in a Time of Crisis. Created in collaboration with several other storytellers, the book was published to comfort children in the New York City area after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Gaindeh Project has distributed about 7,000 copies to schools and has also sold several thousand copies to help finance programs, she said.
Beyond her Gaindeh activities, Simms recently released The Robe of Love, a collection of stories about love from many cultures. "I've been hearing that adults are reading these stories to one another, and I love that," she said. Seeing suffering up close as part of her work can become overwhelming, Simms said, but she tries to do her best at small projects that can have real impact. "If we each do our part, there's so much more positive energy in the world," she said. "But I also see how amazing the human spirit is -- how incredible these children are, for instance. I don't give up on any of them." Find out more about Simms and her many projects at www.laurasimms.com. -- Merrill Oliver Douglas, MA '82 |
An
ethnomusicologist from Kazakhstan once asked Laura Simms to tell of some
dreams she'd had as a child. Simms learned that in traditional Kazakh
culture, those dreams would have marked her as a candidate for training
as a storyteller.
