Haines’ storytelling event, “River Talk” is back after an eighteen month hiatus due to the pandemic. KHNS’ Corinne Smith spoke with an event organizer about what’s in store for audiences as storytellers return to the stage.

 

Haines’ theater group, the Lynn Canal Community Players are putting on “River Talk,” which will feature seven storytellers for seven minutes each. 

“These are local people sharing personal stories of any kind of experience,” Kristin Brumfield is one of the organizers, and also Haines’ school counselor.

“They might make you laugh, they might make you cry, they might make you do both things. And it is, it is really a lovely way to spend a couple hours in the middle of dreary, rainy, cold, October,” she said. 

The community event is back in person at the Chilkat Center for the Arts, after eighteen months on hold due to the pandemic. 

“We did sort of look at a way to do storytelling via Zoom or do a YouTube channel, but we sort of felt that the magic of the event would be lost a little,” she said. “Because part of I think maybe even largely what’s beautiful about River Talk is that it is a gathering of people together in a space where people they maybe have only seen at the grocery store, or walking down the street, or maybe have never seen before in their lives and didn’t even know lived in town, or you know, lived in hand, suddenly are there and you learn something personal about this person, and no one is professional. It is just a fun, casual seven minute talk. Seven speakers, seven minutes for $7.” 

Brumfield says five storytellers have signed up so far, and so there is space for two more. 

Previously, the storytelling event was held monthly, with past themes like “How I ended up in Haines” and “Cheating Death.” This upcoming River Talk has two themes – the first is, “I didn’t see that coming.” 

“Perhaps unconsciously it had to do with the fact that really the last two years, none of us saw coming, you know,” Brumfield said. “This is not something that this pandemic and everything that has been associated with it, it changed us. And it has changed the world and has changed us personally, in personal ways, in a million different ways… from big things to small things to the way we are feeling in our lives in our homes and our jobs. I know that a lot of these people that I speak with are really tired and exhausted. And so this just kind of spoke to me because it never, never saw coming.”

And opposite of that uncertainty, the second theme is “I saw that coming a mile away.” 

“Two sides of the same coin,” Brumfield said. “And yet very different stories. It will be really, really fun.”

It’s also about being together in person, sharing and listening to stories together.

“I think we all might need to be together again, and it might nourish us in a way that we don’t even realize,” Brumfield said. “Just seeing people’s faces a few feet away from you, instead of over a screen. And sharing in a moment collectively, that we haven’t been able to do. Everything has been, maybe with you and the your people you were with in quarantine, watching something on the TV or on a screen. But to actually be sharing a moment of sameness at the same time together is really a thing that we’ve we have not realized we’ve lost maybe, and we might be craving in a way, we don’t even know that it’s going to affect us. I foresee it being really positive and powerful.”

Brumfield says it’s been an extra-ordinary time over the last eighteen months, living through a global pandemic. Everyone has a story to share, and Haines is invited to do so, or just be part of the community experience with River Talk. 

Anyone interested in signing up can do so before Thursday October 21, by reaching Kristin Brumfield directly at (907) 419 – 0374. The storytelling event is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. next Thursday October 21 at the Chilkat Center for the Arts. Entry is $7 and masks are required.