Storytelling a Case of Character-Building

When Ane Rovetta tells a story, like the one about the rare wagtail bird, or the rascally coyote, she draws her audience into the tale--literally.

Rovetta, an illustrator as well as a veteran professional storyteller, dashes off sketches of her characters with the same energetic flair that she puts into her stories.

You can see Rovetta in action this weekend. The Marin County resident returns to Ventura for a performance and an all-day workshop for storytelling wannabes that culminates with tales around the campfire at Arroyo Verde Park.

On Friday, she performs for all ages at 7 p.m. in the atrium at Ventura City Hall. The workshop, for adults, runs from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., followed by campfire stories from 6 to 9:30 p.m.

It’s Rovetta’s sixth trip to Ventura. For the uninitiated, her stories are packed with animals. It’s no wonder, since she is a former teacher who trained as a zoologist and botanist.

“Almost all my stories involve natural history,� she said during a telephone interview. “I’ve got a beautiful bat story from Mexico and a great ant story. I try to find stories about animals that people don’t like.�

At 43, she describes herself as a “stocky, aging, earth-mother type.� But on stage, she’s known for jumping around wildly, switching from the characters of a coyote, lizard or even a rock. She is so animated that one time her gyrations caused her to accidentally careen into a kid in the audience.

“I have people sit back a little now,� she joked.

After she tells a story, she grabs colored chalk and draws an animal, sometimes blending colors like orange and blue on a dinosaur.

“I draw very quickly--it comes from having been a teacher so many years,� she said. “But I’ve made some terrible drawings, like a raccoon that looked like a pig.�

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Rovetta performs and teaches storytelling all over the West, even at the Grand Canyon and as far away as Japan. She says there is a revival in storytelling across the country.

“There are more and more storytelling festivals springing up,� she said. “And now there is interest in having children tell their stories.� Not only that, there is a “small revolution� going on in education: teachers are weaving stories into the curriculum, even for subjects such as math and science.

That’s how Rovetta got into storytelling in the first place. She was a classroom science teacher for 12 years and she began wrapping her teaching around stories to make the subject come alive. She also led nature programs, using stories the same way.

She gave up her teaching position eight years ago and now spends her time performing or coaching others, especially teachers. She writes many of her stories, but some are drawn from folklore around the world.

At Friday night’s performance, she will likely tell a Japanese story about the perplexing wagtail bird.

“Scientists don’t know why the bird wags its tail,� Rovetta said. But in the story, the bird figures into the legend of how Japan was created.

She has a cast of other characters: an empty-headed raccoon, a rumor-spreading jellyfish, and of course the coyote. She rarely uses props, except perhaps dice for her Native American tale about a game of chance, or seeds and nuts for the one about the acorn maiden.

Rovetta believes everyone is a storyteller. “If you were on your way home and something happened, you would burst in and the story would spill out,� she said. What she does in workshops is guide people along, coaching them to start with a story in note form.

“Don’t read it out of a book,� she advises, “because the written language is different.�

After practicing their stories during the workshop, her students will perform them Saturday night when they gather around the campfire at Arroyo Verde Park. Rovetta usually warms them up with a couple of her own stories. She shows them how to use different voices, sound effects and even silence. Then the students take turns.

“There is such ambience,� she said. “They can’t fail.� By the second pass, Rovetta said, students have begun infusing stories with their own personal touches and making them their own.

She said educators, as well as therapists, scientists and other professionals attend her workshops. “I often get parents,� she said. “They shine--there’s no pressure.�

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Rovetta grew up in a storytelling family in South Carolina. Her grandfather, a Southern gentleman, was the best. It was a dinner ritual for the children of the family--Rovetta and her four siblings--to take turns sharing the day’s events.

Rovetta, like many other storytellers, believes that the revival in storytelling is a backlash against the electronic age of television, computers and video games. People are yearning for human contact.

In fact, the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tenn., drew about 8,000 people last October. In Solvang last month, 400 to 500 people came out for the two-day Fifth Annual Flying Leap Storytelling Festival.

Rovetta said “a kind of magic� takes over the audience during a story. Using an image she got from an old Native American woman, she explained that an imaginary net encircles the audience and makes them all one.

“There’s a craving inside us to feel the net.�

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DETAILS

* WHAT: Storyteller Ane Rovetta performs, leads workshops and does campfire storytelling.

PERFORMANCE

* WHEN: 7 to 8:30 p.m. Friday.

* WHERE: Ventura City Hall atrium, 501 Poli St., Ventura.

* COST: $7, adults; $4, children 5-12 years. Children 4 and under free. Preregistration required.

WORKSHOP

* WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; 6 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday.

* WHERE: Arroyo Verde Park, Day and Foothill roads, Ventura.

* COST: $30 (limited to 18 and older). Preregistration required.

* CALL: 658-4726.