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Arts & Communication Using multiple languages within an improvised fairytale

the pandemic from their life and the conditions in their A basic assumption of imaginative storytelling is that
part of the world. The leader then organized a series connections between the emotional and nonverbal aspects
of improvisational dance episodes in response to these of the verbal reports and arts-based expression from the
opening comments to create nonverbal metaphors that were beginning of the session will emerge and be resolved in the
related to these verbal comments. Often, musicians joined creative action, characters, plot, and other metaphors of
the movers with vocal or instrumental improvisation. the fairytale. The fairytale is designed to be a surprise. All
The group then responded using spontaneous art and participants are encouraged to suspend their sense of daily
poetry making. The participants offered verbal reflections reality and linear story-making to view the fairytale within
about their experience with the metaphors. The group a playful fluid context that includes new possibilities in an
then continued to develop additional multimodal arts- alternative world of metaphors, symbols, and discovery. The
based expressions about their specific experiences and result is an emergent nonliteral expression. The audience’s
associations from these initial episodes. The session verbal reflection and arts-based responses to the episode
always ended with an improvised fairytale co-created add to the overall meaning. The resulting fairytale suggests
simultaneously by tellers, musicians, and dancers. The multiple meanings and perspectives.
fairytale was developed as a summary of the images, The initial sessions ended with separate fairytale
metaphors, and symbolic themes that emerged throughout episodes told by storytellers from different countries using
the session. The group ended with members offering different languages. As the project proceeded, a woman from
verbal reflection about overall images and metaphors China who was fluent in both English and Mandarin began
and their experiences during the session. The metaphors to use Mandarin within a tale she was telling in English
transformed the initial verbal comments into expressions with an English speaker. In a subsequent session, the group
that included emotional experiences and new insights. 4 decided to use both English and Mandarin more extensively,
To date, over forty sessions have been conducted. During with separate tellers improvising independently in both
the 1 year of the project, sessions took place approximately languages within one fairytale. The dancers and musicians
st
twice a month. Since December 2020, sessions had taken did not speak Mandarin and continued to improvise with
place monthly until Nov 2022. We had a follow-up session each other using their nonverbal communication.
in July 2023 to address the social-emotional changes since This step was taken as an experiment to see how the final
the intensity of the health crisis has diminished. fairytale would be impacted. The Mandarin was translated.
1.3.3. The fairytale The group agreed that the resulting tales expressed coherent
metaphors when taken together, offered a counterpoint to
The fairytale form is designed to integrate several each other, and were not expected at the beginning. The
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modes of imaginative expression into one collaborative dancers reported that their movement improvisations were
improvisation. In this structure, dancers improvise a creatively impacted by the other languages. They reported
solo, duet, or trio while a musician (or musicians) joins that, at times, they would follow the rhythms of the
with improvised singing and rhythmic instruments. languages and their dance/music partners when they did
Occasionally, a piano is used. Either one or two other not verbally understand the language the storytellers used.
members of the group respond to the dance and music by The storytellers reported that the interactive movement
telling an imaginative story about some world or creatures and music facilitated their imaginative story-making and
in a faraway fantastical place. No one leads with each allowed the storytelling to proceed in an unbroken way.
improviser offering expression in response to the others Both the English and Mandarin storytellers responded
as an ensemble. The improvisation has no preset agenda to the dance and music with stories that were somewhat
or ending, and performers proceed until they find a tangential to each other when placed side by side and did
conclusion together.
not fit into the same literal linear framework. However, the
The dancers move using their internal physical impulses difference provided an overall more complete metaphor,
and their responses to the interaction among other movers, especially when considering the dance and music. In later
rather than trying to create a pantomime of the narrative sessions, bilingual participants in the role of the storyteller
being presented. The musician(s) and dancer(s) develop began to add phrases in both languages creatively at
joint expression in the moment. The teller(s) proceed using appropriate moments to add a narrative connection
their active imagination to create the story and characters between these independent tales. There was no systematic
while watching the dance and musical co-creation. The consideration of which languages were primary among
improvisers find the end of the fairytale through creative those who were improvising. While some participants
discovery together, rather than planning it beforehand. were fluent in both languages and could understand the

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2024) 5 doi: 10.36922/ac.2079