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FEBRUARY 2010
Sedina Fiati as “Elephant”
February 2010
Dear Teachers:
Thank you for inviting
little red theatre to your school with 'The Name of the Tree". We are
excited to offer our high quality and innovative performance of
this African Bantu Tale. We hope to to stimulate and excite and
activate all the artists in our small children.
My reason for
writing this play was because I wanted to have a theatre production in
little red theatre’s repertoire that I would be comfortable inviting
three year olds to and could honestly say they will definitely
understand it. I see many 3 year olds at my shows and they enjoy
themselves but I do not think they understand the story. When I
usually write for a “JK - 4" audience, the play is
intellectually compatible with more of a six or seven year old in
development and I really wanted something that was for younger children.
I had learned about the book “The Name of the Tree”and had written a
script which I used to teach a class of 30 kids in 1991 and the theme
stuck in my head. This theatre piece has a gentleness
and a bit slower pacing that I feel is sometimes missing in my
older shows.
In THE NAME OF THE TREE little red theatre
takes us on a journey through an African landscape searching for the
special word that will bring down the delicious fruit of a tree.
We presents a participatory interactive production for very young
audiences with lots of singing and dancing, shadows and light, as
the animals go walking across the great plain.
GREAT
WEBSITES ABOUT ANIMALS FROM AFRICA!!
http://www.africanpictures.info
http://www.africanfauna.com
We hope that you enjoy this play as much as we have enjoyed
creating it.
Yours truly,
Jody Terio, Artistic Director
Details on show:
The production of The Name of the Tree/LE NOM DE L’ARBRE is
approximately 40 minutes in length and we follow it up with a 10 minute
question and answer period. The Book by Celia Parker Lottridge is
published by Goundwood Books from Toronto and is available in your
local library or bookstore. The script was written by Jody
Terio, Artistic Director of little red theatre. The head dresses
were built by Pamela Schuller
and the music was composed by Kirk Elliott. Sets and props were
made by Jason J. Brown. All of these artists live in Toronto.
This story is good for the younger children because of the
funny words in it. They love words like “Ungalli” and they love the fact
that it keeps being forgotten. The story also has a lot of animals in
it, whose voices and motions can be very entertaining to young children.
Repetition is important to this age group, and many things are repeated
in the story, such as the journey to the queen and the name of the tree.
This story is short and pretty simple in plot, which maps nicely onto
the opinion that children at this age have a short attention span.
Overall, it is a catchy, pretty quick tale.
There will be
a CD available that is a sound recording of this show that you can order
through our myspace account on the internet. The cost is $12.00
www.myspace.com/littleredtheatre
Leslie Takeda as
“Gazelle”
PREPARATING FOR The Name of the Tree
Once upon a time there were no books. Stories were told and we
painted the pictures on the pages of our minds. This is how the
fire of human imagination was lit and creativity was born.
(From
Stories of Africa website)
The Name of the Tree is a story that
was told in Africa and has all the qualities of an tale told in
the oral tradition. Celia Lottridge Barker heard this story here
in Canada and she made her own version of it. You may have in your
library. She wrote it in 1989 and if is published by
Groundwood Books. If you want to read it to your kids, it is
quite wonderful
One day in 2006 I had a little interview with
Celia about her reasons for making this book and am sharing it with you
below.
INTERVIEW WITH:
Celia Barker
Lottridge, Author of the book The Name of the Tree talks about the
writing of the book.
This is what Celia said...
This
story The Name of the Tree, has been with me for a very long time.
A version of it was in a book, a collection of stories read to me when I
was a child. They were the Umbrella books, there was the red
umbrella and blue umbrella etc and one of them, I can’t remember which
one, had this story in it about a tree which had fruit on it and the
animals that were hungry. I must have loved that story because,
I was around five years old when I first heard it and when I was working
in New York at the school I decided to tell a story to each class when
they came to the library. That meant that I had to tell a story to five
different classes so I was trying to remember stories that I already
knew. The story just came into my mind and I could remember it so
I started telling it. In that version its called the Bojabi tree.
Some people who have haunted libraries in their lives may remember it.
Its also a picture book.
One day I came across the book
and I found out that Umbrella version had rhymes and the animals all
spoke in rhymes and they all had names like pinky pig and tommy
tortoise. I thought, I’m sure this is a folk tale. The book
didn’t refer to it as a folk tale but it felt like one to me because by
then I had told enough stories that I could see it had the pattern of a
folk tale and I realized that I had forgotten the rhymes and the names
of the animals.
So I went on telling it the way I
had been telling it but I started thinking I should really find out more
about this story. It was always one of the stories children loved
the most. When I moved to Canada, I was telling it and people
liked it a lot. There was a very lively community of storytellers so we
learned stories from each other and various people started telling this
story. One day I went into Boys and Girls House in the Toronto
Public Library and one of the librarians asked where I got the story
about the tree because people were always asking the source for it.
Suddenly I had this flash of light. Someone is going to write this
story down and I’m going to be very annoyed if that isn’t me because I’m
the person telling it.
Then I realized if I was going to
write it I had to find out more about it and began to do research.
I found a book in the reference library on Southern African peoples that
had a chapter in it called a Bantu tale, this book referred to this
group as Bantu. It later turned out that the word “Bantu” is a
little like the word 'indian' in North America and now it isn't used
much. The story about the tree was in it, the tree with the
magical property of always having fruit on it and a secret about the
tree and who knew the name of it, there were a lot of variations.
But first of all I knew there were many versions of it so I didn't feel
it was wrong of me to write a version that was close to the one I had
been telling. Some of the variations all the animals are
tortoises and some of them forget. I felt that my variations was
an acceptable variant. And one of the main things that I found out
was that different peoples who tell the story have different names for
the tree. And even Danny Kaye had a recording he did for UNICEF
years and years ago and had a version of the story and the tree had a
much longer name. If each people have a different name for the
tree then I as a new people can create my own name. I didn't want
to choose one of theirs and I wanted a word that would fit in with this
chant I had for the story. So I came up with the name "Ungalli".
My brother and sister in law who teach at the university have many
African friends so I got my sister in law to ask them if the word
"Ungalli" meant anything and it didn't in Swahili or various other
African languages. In Swahili it’s a word similar to a basic food
product so I thought that was good and I went ahead and used the name
Ungalli.
Then I just wrote it the way I told it.
Sometimes children ask me how long it takes to write this book and I say
that it took from 1962 to 1989 for it to get shaped and for me to learn
all that I needed. It can take a long time to make a book!!!
Celia talking to Jody, September 22, 2006
TO DO:
1. Find the
picture book of The Name of the Tree at your local library.
2.
Discuss the geography of the place where this story takes place.
3.
Follow up with another story or stories in Africa which express the
culture.
4. If available,
read THESE ONES!!
CHECK OUT THIS GREAT WEBSITE!!
http://storytimeafrica.com
THE MUSIC for THE NAME OF THE TREE
Kirk Elliott who
lives in Toronto, wrote the music for our play. Kirk is a veteran
musician who can play ‘every instrument in the world” (REALLY!)
LISTEN TO SOME AFRICAN MUSIC!
DO SOME AFRICAN DANCE!!
The music of Africa is as vast and varied as the continent's many
regions, nations and ethnic groups. Although there is no distinctly
African music, there are common forms of musical expression, especially
within regions.
Some musical genres of northern and northeastern
Africa, and the Islands off East Africa, share both traditional African
and Middle Eastern features.
The music and dance forms of the
African diaspora, including many Caribbean and Latin American music
genres like rumba and salsa, as well as African American music, were
founded to varying degrees on musical traditions from Africa, taken
there by African slaves.
RHYTHMIC PRINCIPLES
by C. K. Ladzekpo
"Gbe na dze ga dzi"
"The voice should
sound in time"
Rhythm is the movement in time of individual
sounds. However
rhythm is not only the whole feeling of movement in music, but also the
dominant feature which creates the transcendent environment necessary
for the needs of communication and unification. In this view,
rhythm provides the regular pulsation or beat which is the focal point
in uniting the energies of the entire community in the pursuit of their
collective destiny.
Rhythm is an important instructional medium in
the development and reinforcement of the basic moral consciousness in
terms of what is real and important in life, and how life ought to be
lived. In this view, rhythm is the animating and shaping force or
principle that underlies the distinctive quality of being. Its medium
provides the training and the logical means of subjecting contrasting
forces or moments in human existence to human control. In this world, a
good rhythmic sensitivity is essential and is the most desired musical
skill.
We took some of the rhythms for our play from the Tribal
Rhythms CDs that Brent Lewis puts out and built our scores on top of
them. Want to hear Brent?
Go to this website to hear a sample
and maybe you can dance with the kids!!
http://www.brentlewis.com
Brent Lewis has many CDs which you
can order from your local library. Brent's life is his music, and
the study of tribal rhythms. His education has been intense and in-depth
studying with drum masters in different parts of the world. His
experience studying with the master professor Mr. Kwasi Badu of Ghana,
Africa, was profound and very meaningful. Brent has traveled throughout
Africa to study the roots of African music, tribal ceremonies and
rhythms. His music takes ancestral rhythms from all over the world and
combines them for a unique world beat.
ANOTHER GREAT WEB SITE!
http://www.rhythmweb.com/africa/
FOLLOWUP AFTER The name of the tree
- Ask your class if they understood the story of The Name of the Tree.ol class="style2">
- Did they think that the tortoise was very brave for going to see
the Lion Queen?
- Did they remember the name too or did they forget the first few
times?
Talk to your class about telling their own stories. Let them make up
a similar story using the animal motif.
Ask them if they could be any animal which one would they like to
be. If they were that animal what kind of character would that animal
have.
- Take 10 minutes and let them explore through their bodies, the
feelings of those animals. Let them move around with it for awhile.
Set up this exercise with clear boundaries that they are not to
interact with each other in their animal selves.
- Let them describe their experiences.
Draw your own pictures of life in Africa and other things the
animals in the story might do when they weren’t hungry anymore.
Studyguide revised February 2010
Contact Info: Jody Terio, Artistic
Director, little red theatre (416) 533.8848
www.littleredtheatre.on.ca
STUDENT WORKSHEET ON NEXT PAGE!
Name:
_____________________________
Class:_______________
THE NAME OF THE TREE
1. What are some
of the great lesson that you learned from this story?
____________________________________________________________________________
2. What were the different ways
that this story was told?
____________________________________________________________________________
3. What animal would you prefer to
be and why?
____________________________________________________________________________
4. Draw your favourite scene in the
play.
5. What
other stories do you like?
____________________________________________________________________________
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