Storytelling Action Prompts
As people continue to resist Shell Oil’s attempts to drill in the Arctic, here are some storytelling prompts that can help us get to know each other, and to imagine a future worth fighting for. These are playful, thoughtful, wild, and/or meditative activities that can be done in groups, alone, or in pairs. They can be done right on the front lines during actions to build trust and to cope with anxiety. They can also be done before or after actions to prepare and debrief. They can be done here in Seattle in the shadow of Shell’s Arctic Doomfleet, or they can be done from afar, in solidarity. In any case, they can help us travel through the portal from the futures (https://portals.noblogs.org/) that this moment has opened.
If any of these prompts generate writing, videos, music, or visual arts that you want to share, please send your creations to portalfromthefutures@riseup.net. The prompts themselves are a work in progress, so if you have edits/ feedback/ new prompts please email these as well.
Trust Building / General Storytelling:
-In small groups or pairs, each person tells a story of how they became active in struggles for freedom, environmental justice, a new society, etc.
In groups or pairs choose one or more of these prompts to tell a story that matters to you:
-stories an elder or mentor shared with us that we want to pass on to others
– stories that show something important about the places we call home
– stories about the funniest moments we’ve experienced in struggles
– stories that convey some important political or social message that we want to pass on
– stories about moments that opened up our imagination about what a new society might be like.
– stories from historical movements
– “coming out” stories
– stories about relationships/ sexuality/ love
– stories that convey some sort of spiritual/religious/artistic/
– stories about how we met each other, or when we first really got to know each other.
– “war” stories about dealing with authorities, racists, sexists, haters, etc.
– stories we’ve been wanting to share with each other but we weren’t sure if anyone was interested
Storytelling Against Shell:
Improv collaboration storytelling circle:
everyone sits in a circle. The goal is to imagine what the world will be like 3 years, 30 years, 300 years, or 3000 years from now if we don’t stop the rig.
One person starts describing what life will be like. The person to their left then says “yes, and…” and adds on a short description. Then the person to their left says “yes, and…” and continues
Then, do a second circle describing what the future will be like if we DO stop the rig and if we stop fossil fuel extraction in our lifetime.
note: this can be done multiple times – one for 3 years if we do stop it, one for 3 years if we don’t, one for 30 years if we do, one for 30 years if we don’t, and so on…
Hip Hop/ Poetry Cyphers:
- beatbox or put on a beat and take turns doing freestyle raps about climate change, Shell Oil, and the struggle against it. Emphasize no-one needs to be perfect at rhyming, it’s okay to take risks and be silly.
- someone shouts out a line, and someone else shouts out another line that rhymes with it, and so on
- Simile Cypher: one person shouts out the beginning of a simile and whoever wants to shouts out different endings to it. For example, the first person could shout “Shell is like….” and then another person could should out a way of finishing the simile, e.g. “a vampire sucking the blood of the ancestors”. Then the first person say “shell is like” again, and another person shouts out a different ways of finishing the simile, and so on… Once people run out of ideas for ending that simile, someone else could shout a new start line, e.g. “we are like…” , “the planet is like…” or “this struggle is like….” and people could take turns finishing that.
Letter to my great grandchild:
Write a letter to your great grandchild or to the great grandchild of someone you know and care for. Describe what you did while the rig was in Seattle and why. Describe what kind of life you want for the person you are writing to, and why.
Day in the life of my grandchild/ great grandchild:
Write what life will be like for your great grandchild, from sunup to sundown. How will they eat, what kind of interactions will they have with people and with plants and animals, what will their living situation be like, what will the climate be like, etc.? Describe this in writing / spoken word/ song/ music/ etc.
you can do this twice, once for if we stop Shell, and once for if we don’t stop Shell
Day in the life of our grandchild/ great grandchild (two-person improv activity):
two people form a pair to work on the Day in the Life activity together, imagining what life would be like for their grandchild or great grandchild.
( You could either imagine raising kids together who then have grandkids and great grandkids, or could imagine your grandkids meeting each other and raising kids together. This allows for greater or lesser degrees of intimacy based on what boundaries people want and who they choose for a storytelling partner )
One person is responsible for the plot/ storyline (simply telling what happens, then what happens next). The other person is responsible for “coloring in” the story by providing details, images, and descriptions at key points. They alternate. If this is done as pairs within a larger group, the group facilitator could call “plot” and “coloring in” at regular intervals to prompt the pairs to alternate.
What we could do with that rig:
Imagine we stop the rig and it never leaves West Seattle to go to the arctic. What would we do with it? Would we turn it into a museum? An art project? What would our descendants do with it? Describe this using words, music, or visual arts
Mirroring:
one person sits in front of a semicircle to talk about how they feel about the rig, about the struggle against it, and about the future. Do you feel hope? Despair? Hypocrisy? Strength? Weakness? Why?
Meanwhile, another person (preferably someone chosen by the main speaker) sits next to them. At regular intervals, the main speaker pauses, and the second speaker guesses what the main speaker might be thinking/ feeling/ struggling to express, and says it. Then the main speaker can choose whether they agree or disagree with this guess and can elaborate on why if they want.
Two Paths Diverged:
Find an area with enough space for this. A group of people stands in a circle drawn in chalk on the ground. This is the present. The facilitator draws a line in chalk outward from the circle, representing history moving into the future. That line splits into two lines, one representing what happens if we stop Shell’s arctic drilling, the other representing what happens if we don’t. Half the group walks one line, the other half walks the other (people can count off 1-2-1-2 to divide up randomly). Along each line there are stopping points for different time scales, e.g. 3 years, 30 years, 300 years from now. When the group gets to the first two stopping points (e.g. 3 years along each line), the side on the “we didn’t stop Shell” line tells stories about what life would be like. Then the side on the “we stopped Shell” line tells stories about what life would be like. Then everyone moves to the next position on the line and does the same.
Historian interview/ media interview:
Group storytelling activity. One person pretends to be an independent media journalist or historian documenting this struggle against Shell. 2-5 people do interviews, telling stories about what has happened so far in the struggle. The interviewer can ask follow up questions and can prompt people to speak more about anything they find interesting. You could do this as an imaginary interview, or you could actually record it for the historical record. If you do record it, keep in mind not to record anything that may incriminate yourself or others.
History of the near future interview:
Group improv imagination / storytelling activity. Same as the prompt above, except now the historian/ journalist is conducting the interview a week, month, or year from now (you choose). They are asking questions about what “happened” between now and then. So the people doing the interview are imagining things that could happen in the near future, but are presenting them in past tense.
Note: this is a way to imagine all sorts of strategies and possible actions, to wildly brainstorm… it doesn’t mean you literally are proposing that people do what you are imagining. But at the end, there could be time to reflect on the exercise and to think about whether you do want to try out some of the things you brainstormed.
Breathing Climate Change Meditation:
Everyone sits in a comfortable position – on a chair, or cross-legged, whatever people prefer. Everyone closes their eyes and focuses on their breathing. How does your body feel as you breath in? As you breath out? Then, recognize that the air you are breathing in IS the climate that is changing. As you recognize this, how does your body feel as you breath in? How does it feel as you breath out?
At the end, everyone can talk about what they experienced, or can write about it.