Cocoon Storytellers Share their Roots

Contrary to popular belief, vocal acrobatics, flawless dance contortions and state-of-the-art technology are not always necessary for an entertaining show. Sometimes, all it takes is one voice. Live storytelling is more than simply a tactic to lull young children to sleep or to pass time during long car rides; it is an art that helps to celebrate, validate and make sense of the many layers of human experience. Such was the purpose of the third annual Cocoon, a storytelling event organized by the Middlebury Moth-UP in collaboration with Director of the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA) Liza Sacheli on Saturday, Oct. 18. Featuring six members of the College and broader Vermont community, the night centered on the theme of “roots.” August Hutchinson ’16.5 and Celia Watson ’17, producers of the Middlebury Moth-UP, served as co-organizers and hosts of the event.

As per Moth-UP tradition, there were only three rules to the Cocoon: all stories had to be true, speakers could take no longer than ten minutes and they were not allowed to bring any notes onstage. The resulting performances were delightful in their honesty and polished in their delivery, spanning a wide spectrum of ages, backgrounds and experiences. The lineup consisted of Alexa Beyer ’15.5, Bianca Giaever ’12.5, a filmmaker featured on NPR’s This American Life and founder of The Middlebury Moth-UP; Associate Professor of History Rebecca Bennette, Burlington-based storyteller Deena Frankel, Jabari Matthew ’17 and Naomi Eisenberg ’18.

Collectively, the stories spanned a timeline from Sept. 11, 2001 to a childhood in the Bronx to this past summer. Settings ranged from the bottom of a canyon cliff in New Mexico to a youth village in Israel to a Picasso Erotique display in a Montreal art museum. Images of stolen pink bikes, falafel and embarrassing tube socks all managed to cross the audience members’ minds over the course of the two-hour show. Born from each individual’s interpretation of the theme “roots,” this sporadic hodgepodge of times, places and ideas made for a night of laughter, reflection and a few shocked silences.

Alexa Beyer kicked off the show by connecting a humorous incident of childhood naiveté to her current mantra as an environmentalist. She radiated with positivity, even when recounting her innocently unassuming response to the man who stole her bike and tried to sell it for $500, and then her subsequent struggle to keep a drive-in movie theatre alive in the wake of Walmart’s descent. Her hopeful spirit and ability to reflect compassionately on negative situations around her shined through particularly well in her closing lines.

“Our enemies aren’t these two-dimensional, evil villains,” Beyer said. “What is a big company if not a bunch of people who cry at the sad parts of movies? […] We keep trying to stab them with the law and wonder why they duck.” Ending her story with a thoughtful challenge, half directed toward the audience, half to herself, she stated, “Change their hearts as individuals by doing things that are inappropriately kind.”

Rebecca Bennette gave a similar, albeit less direct, call for more open hearts and minds. Following a chilling account of her experience in Germany as a half-Japanese woman mistaken – and subsequently discriminated against – for being Turkish, Bennette remarked, “My point is not that I can speak with authority on all forms of racism. Quite the opposite.” Delivered with calm precision, her speech struck the most serious tone of the night.

“People are discriminated against because their roots are from the ‘wrong’ places,” Bennette stated. “Yet they are brave enough to come anyway.”
Continuing the discussion of identity and belonging – concepts that can prove hazy for those who do not fit neatly into a certain category – Naomi Eisenberg offered reflection on her service trip to Israel in a performance that managed to be both humorous and harrowing. Using moments of laughter as transition points, she navigated the challenges, joys and absurdities of her summer with impressive clarity and eloquence.
“Imagine spooning vomit back into your mouth,” she described of a soup that caused the entire service group to “poop their brains out.” “Now add hummus.”

Switching expertly between points of comedy and gravity, Eisenberg’s parting words spoke poignantly to the sense of displacement that many of us undoubtedly feel about certain places in our lives.

“I thought I already knew Israel. But after I saw the country turned upside down, inside out, I realized how rootless I was,” she said. “This is not a place we’re entitled to. We have to make our own roots here.”

Meanwhile, in a critical examination of their own roots, Bianca Giaever and Jabari Matthew both offered stories of stark self-reflection, though set in drastically different contexts. Giaever’s tale began after her graduation from Middlebury; Matthew’s story dated back to his toddler and elementary school days. Giaever’s whimsical adventure – which landed her on a cross-country road trip to New Mexico, following a list of poetic clues in search of a millionaire’s hidden treasure whilst trying to get over a heartbreak – seemed almost too ridiculous to be true, whilst Matthew’s account of his early childhood dance lessons and falling out with his best friend Richard struck a nostalgic chord with the audience in its relatability.

Ultimately, both brought to light the importance of understanding – or at least trying to understand – how we arrived to where we are today and all the people and places along the way.

“I didn’t want to make my story seem as if it was a class lecture,” Matthew said. “I wanted to give off the truth, which was that although I experienced what I did in my story, I am still figuring things out. And perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in my story, but whether or not there was, that was certainly not the point.”

Giaever’s story echoed the same spirit of self-discovery. Her manner of speaking was endearingly open-hearted, as if she were reading straight from the pages of her own private journal. Meanwhile, Matthew’s voice boomed with conviction, his expert vocal portrayals of the other characters in his story often creating the surreal sense of a one-man show.

Perhaps the performance that elicited the widest range of emotion from the audience was Deena Frankel’s story on love, life and loss. Beginning with a blind date at an art display about sex and ending with a somber mountain hike on Sept. 11, 2001 with her soon-to-be husband, Frankel infused her piece with a delicate mixture of amusement, joy and sadness.

“[The art display] was all about sex, in every permutation and combination that you can think of, and some that I’m sure you cannot,” she said, drawing huge laughs from the crowd. “What do you say to a guy you just met about this? ‘Nice brush strokes?’”

Frankel’s sophisticated and confident delivery stood as a testament to her experience not only as a storyteller, but also as a member of the Vermont community with a myriad of wisdom to share.

“Love has its roots in shared comedy and tragedy,” she stated. “Our stories are the roots of love.”

In an era that has shifted largely toward film, media and television, the power of live oral storytelling is often underestimated, its relevance as an art medium questioned. But as the packed theater of the MCA proved on Saturday night, there is a strong demand for this performance platform. Events like the Cocoon remind us of the importance of human connections in the absence of screens and push us to find meaning in everyday interactions. The live energy and sense of shared experience that flourish during these events are rewarding to audience members and speakers alike.

“To be able to share your stories is one thing,” Eisenberg said. “But to know that there are people who showed up just to listen is, to me, really beautiful. As long as there are people who are willing to share their stories, there will be people who are willing to listen.”