by Mike Speller
About five years ago, our facility was in turmoil: staffing issues, a renovation looming, a little bit of flooding, you name it. My own solution to weathering the storm was employing “offstage” what I’d been unconsciously using during costumed interpretation the previous five years: The Serenity Prayer.
God grant me the Serenity
to Accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.
I am not a particularly religious man, but I know wise words and I know what works. The offstage “storm” passed and I am now in my ninth year doing first-person and third-person history at Isle a la Cache Museum in northern Illinois.
“Andre the River” negotiates the price of an otter pelt with a young trader.
Beyond the outward authentic clothing we’ll take as a “given,” first-person credibility is influenced by the things I must accept—audience, environment, and experience. How I react to them is where the courage and wisdom appear.
Audience
When I started as an interpreter-voyageur, I had 45 to 60 minutes alone each day with up to 50 elementary-age students. Monday could be second graders and Tuesday 10-year-olds. I had (have) no control over who I saw—accepted.
Obviously, I could change how I approached each group. Seven-year-olds need to feel safe with the strange-talking, strangely dressed stranger. Guided imagery for time-travel, slower rate of speech, basic information on the fur trade (or just trading), and occasional participation empowered them.
Fifth graders are a smart audience, not cynical but realistic in seeing “the guy in costume.” Immediate immersion in the time period and persona means immersing them in a situation—doing something—not giving them a chance to be detached/cynical/distracted. That succeeds for me.
Adults can be playful or wallflowers when it comes to interacting at a rendezvous or living history weekend. My voyageur’s persona is sometimes known as “Andre the River”: big mouth, always running. So I have an excuse to talk to everyone as potential trading partner, potential dinner cook, or potential romance.
After initial introductions, I accept what I’m given. Have they responded with a period-correct question? With humor? With a grunt? I continue with all three to their taste. Don’t expect your audience to change. Change your delivery, your topic, or your audience-participation level to make connections. You cannot have credibility without a relationship with the visitor.
For example: In a session with fifth graders, I had a few kids “buy in” to my storytelling. The non-responsive majority still received my attention, my eye contact, and the occasional individual comment to keep them involved in some capacity. After the program, the students created original pictograph stories, and about 10 of 30 were brave enough to share them aloud.
I later found out one of the brave girls had lost two close relatives recently and basically closed herself up until that field trip. Her pictograph tale finally expressed those lost relationships with respect and beauty. That brave girl was one of the “unresponsive” kids.
If I pushed her, tried to make her participate, or change her behavior, would her response have been the same?
Environment
I envy the folks at Conner Prairie (Indiana) and Williamsburg (Virginia), among others, because the interpreters and visitors are immersed in the historic place itself. Parking lots are out of sight, power lines don’t intrude, and signage is discreet.
I accept the fact Isle a la Cache staff must greet students in character yet still within sight of the parking lot, within earshot of a four-lane highway, and amid smells of a nearby coal-burning plant. I accept those circumstances and ignore them at the same time.
My voyageur’s focus is on the “newcomers,” and that attention is reciprocated. If someone’s focus wanders, I don’t dismiss them or berate them, I explain it as best I can in terms of our “world” (for example, a noisy plane is “a goose with gas”) and resume our flow.
By saying it’s not there, you are not accepting the addition to your teaching environment; you’re ignoring the obvious. That’s the surest way to lose respect and credibility.
Granted, you can only explain so much. Changing your perception of the modern item and diverting audience attention are nice alternatives, but at some point you have to address the vocal realist: “You are visiting me in my world. If you respect me, I will respect you. I hope you make the right choice.”
You’ve given them an opportunity to change: Be courageous and join the group mentality (and fun) or accept the literal/modern and get less out of your day.
Obviously, your facility has to make best efforts to create legitimate historic structures, include the natural “wild” landscape, and acknowledge environment is necessary to sustain your credibility.
However, we must also accept varied modern environments when we visit schools as voyageur or native. The best approach I’ve found is “stranger in a strange land.”
Use your wisdom: accept the fact that you’re out of your element. Seek comfort in finding common language, mutual likes and dislikes, etc., between you and your students. Share what you would be doing or were doing in your time before you arrived in their place. By keeping the conversation personal, you avoid “dead air” and the chance for them to try and teach you everything modern in 45 minutes or less.
There may be no good way to explain how you got from your time to theirs (sleeping, conked on the head, canoe through a dark fog). Have the courage to pick one, sell it well, and move on.
Experience
Sorry to say so, but you’re stuck with your past and your personality. If you’re wise, though, you know your experiences are the bulk of your interpretive “toolbox.” Who you are fuels your historic persona.
Portraying a voyageur is serene for me in two ways: 1) I am a professional actor and storyteller, so my confidence as a character/persona is strong, and (2) I memorize lots of information very quickly.
However, if someone asks “Andre” if he ever got burnt in a campfire, Mike cannot draw on that specifically but he remembers he seared the heel of his hand in an oven once. “Andre” can relate that sensation, along with the French profanities, if you like.
Every time I meet a new class, I learn where to pitch my tone and content. Experience should not generate preconceptions. This week’s fourth-grade class may be an unruly “blank slate” on the fur trade, while next week’s fourth graders may know the Chicago Portage site like their backyard. Accept their experience level and change your approach to forge or strengthen their connections to the trade in all its glory.
The catch to first-person historical interpretation is the audience presumption that you’ve experienced your 18th-century New France world from North Pole to South Pole.
It’s accepted that research with primary and secondary sources will give you sufficient information to talk about the period and the region, and to add relevant context for your persona. It’s hoped that interpreter and reenactor peers will help you shop, add to your skill set, and provide moral support. It’s true that personal experiences will give flavor to all of the above.
However, that impressive mental arsenal can be disarmed by one visitor’s innocent question—if you don’t know the answer. Accept your present limitation: An 18th-century voyageur has finite knowledge of his world. No Internet, telephones, or jet planes are there to speed or spread communication. Wisdom is saying, “I don’t know” when you should.
Serenity?
If we want to honor the past, the decisions you make in the future about audience, environment, and experience can gain you relationships, respect, and ultimately the credibility you seek.
Hopefully, I’ve shared something to add to your wisdom. I welcome hearing from peers to gain more wits myself.
Bonne chance and serenity now!
Mike Speller is an interpretive specialist for the Forest Preserve District of Will County at Isle a la Cache Museum in Romeoville, Illinois.
by Ethan Rotman
This column is a series designed to help enhance your PowerPoint presentations. Each edition pinpoints common pitfalls faced when planning, preparing, and presenting PowerPoint shows.
by Alan Leftridge
Serenity, Acceptance, Courage, and Wisdom
by Mike Speller
About five years ago, our facility was in turmoil: staffing issues, a renovation looming, a little bit of flooding, you name it. My own solution to weathering the storm was employing “offstage” what I’d been unconsciously using during costumed interpretation the previous five years: The Serenity Prayer.
God grant me the Serenity
to Accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.
I am not a particularly religious man, but I know wise words and I know what works. The offstage “storm” passed and I am now in my ninth year doing first-person and third-person history at Isle a la Cache Museum in northern Illinois.
“Andre the River” negotiates the price of an otter pelt with a young trader.
Beyond the outward authentic clothing we’ll take as a “given,” first-person credibility is influenced by the things I must accept—audience, environment, and experience. How I react to them is where the courage and wisdom appear.
Audience
When I started as an interpreter-voyageur, I had 45 to 60 minutes alone each day with up to 50 elementary-age students. Monday could be second graders and Tuesday 10-year-olds. I had (have) no control over who I saw—accepted.
Obviously, I could change how I approached each group. Seven-year-olds need to feel safe with the strange-talking, strangely dressed stranger. Guided imagery for time-travel, slower rate of speech, basic information on the fur trade (or just trading), and occasional participation empowered them.
Fifth graders are a smart audience, not cynical but realistic in seeing “the guy in costume.” Immediate immersion in the time period and persona means immersing them in a situation—doing something—not giving them a chance to be detached/cynical/distracted. That succeeds for me.
Adults can be playful or wallflowers when it comes to interacting at a rendezvous or living history weekend. My voyageur’s persona is sometimes known as “Andre the River”: big mouth, always running. So I have an excuse to talk to everyone as potential trading partner, potential dinner cook, or potential romance.
After initial introductions, I accept what I’m given. Have they responded with a period-correct question? With humor? With a grunt? I continue with all three to their taste. Don’t expect your audience to change. Change your delivery, your topic, or your audience-participation level to make connections. You cannot have credibility without a relationship with the visitor.
For example: In a session with fifth graders, I had a few kids “buy in” to my storytelling. The non-responsive majority still received my attention, my eye contact, and the occasional individual comment to keep them involved in some capacity. After the program, the students created original pictograph stories, and about 10 of 30 were brave enough to share them aloud.
I later found out one of the brave girls had lost two close relatives recently and basically closed herself up until that field trip. Her pictograph tale finally expressed those lost relationships with respect and beauty. That brave girl was one of the “unresponsive” kids.
If I pushed her, tried to make her participate, or change her behavior, would her response have been the same?
Environment
I envy the folks at Conner Prairie (Indiana) and Williamsburg (Virginia), among others, because the interpreters and visitors are immersed in the historic place itself. Parking lots are out of sight, power lines don’t intrude, and signage is discreet.
I accept the fact Isle a la Cache staff must greet students in character yet still within sight of the parking lot, within earshot of a four-lane highway, and amid smells of a nearby coal-burning plant. I accept those circumstances and ignore them at the same time.
My voyageur’s focus is on the “newcomers,” and that attention is reciprocated. If someone’s focus wanders, I don’t dismiss them or berate them, I explain it as best I can in terms of our “world” (for example, a noisy plane is “a goose with gas”) and resume our flow.
By saying it’s not there, you are not accepting the addition to your teaching environment; you’re ignoring the obvious. That’s the surest way to lose respect and credibility.
Granted, you can only explain so much. Changing your perception of the modern item and diverting audience attention are nice alternatives, but at some point you have to address the vocal realist: “You are visiting me in my world. If you respect me, I will respect you. I hope you make the right choice.”
You’ve given them an opportunity to change: Be courageous and join the group mentality (and fun) or accept the literal/modern and get less out of your day.
Obviously, your facility has to make best efforts to create legitimate historic structures, include the natural “wild” landscape, and acknowledge environment is necessary to sustain your credibility.
However, we must also accept varied modern environments when we visit schools as voyageur or native. The best approach I’ve found is “stranger in a strange land.”
Use your wisdom: accept the fact that you’re out of your element. Seek comfort in finding common language, mutual likes and dislikes, etc., between you and your students. Share what you would be doing or were doing in your time before you arrived in their place. By keeping the conversation personal, you avoid “dead air” and the chance for them to try and teach you everything modern in 45 minutes or less.
There may be no good way to explain how you got from your time to theirs (sleeping, conked on the head, canoe through a dark fog). Have the courage to pick one, sell it well, and move on.
Experience
Sorry to say so, but you’re stuck with your past and your personality. If you’re wise, though, you know your experiences are the bulk of your interpretive “toolbox.” Who you are fuels your historic persona.
Portraying a voyageur is serene for me in two ways: 1) I am a professional actor and storyteller, so my confidence as a character/persona is strong, and (2) I memorize lots of information very quickly.
However, if someone asks “Andre” if he ever got burnt in a campfire, Mike cannot draw on that specifically but he remembers he seared the heel of his hand in an oven once. “Andre” can relate that sensation, along with the French profanities, if you like.
Every time I meet a new class, I learn where to pitch my tone and content. Experience should not generate preconceptions. This week’s fourth-grade class may be an unruly “blank slate” on the fur trade, while next week’s fourth graders may know the Chicago Portage site like their backyard. Accept their experience level and change your approach to forge or strengthen their connections to the trade in all its glory.
The catch to first-person historical interpretation is the audience presumption that you’ve experienced your 18th-century New France world from North Pole to South Pole.
It’s accepted that research with primary and secondary sources will give you sufficient information to talk about the period and the region, and to add relevant context for your persona. It’s hoped that interpreter and reenactor peers will help you shop, add to your skill set, and provide moral support. It’s true that personal experiences will give flavor to all of the above.
However, that impressive mental arsenal can be disarmed by one visitor’s innocent question—if you don’t know the answer. Accept your present limitation: An 18th-century voyageur has finite knowledge of his world. No Internet, telephones, or jet planes are there to speed or spread communication. Wisdom is saying, “I don’t know” when you should.
Serenity?
If we want to honor the past, the decisions you make in the future about audience, environment, and experience can gain you relationships, respect, and ultimately the credibility you seek.
Hopefully, I’ve shared something to add to your wisdom. I welcome hearing from peers to gain more wits myself.
Bonne chance and serenity now!
Mike Speller is an interpretive specialist for the Forest Preserve District of Will County at Isle a la Cache Museum in Romeoville, Illinois.
Posted in Commentaries, Costumed Interpretation