artist’s aside: Return to Innocence—reawakening the art of storytelling

“Sorry man,” I say into my phone as I walk towards Fernwood’s Cornerstone Cafe. “I can’t go to the bar. I’m going to story time.”

Silence.

A year or two ago I would have thought story time was for kids. I was ­concerned with becoming an adult. But now this childishness was exactly what appealed to me.

“There’s an innocence involved… When a group of adults essentially enters their inner child together,” says Coco Kimmitt, a Victoria based storyteller and sound healer.

Kimmitt, a.k.a. Kami Wing—as she is known when performing her ­stories—believes that with society’s ­technological surge, entertainment has become ­unnecessarily complicated.

“Storytelling is so authentically raw and simple. What it brings to this day and age is a remembering of the potency of ­metaphorical self-reflection through ­experiential listening. I relate it, in a way, to how we interpret dreams.”

Although storytelling has been a part of human evolution since the birth of ­language, in the last century it has become increasingly hard to find. When asked if she knew of any other practising ­storytellers, Kimmitt was stumped.

“I don’t know of anyone doing it the way I do where I create the original soundtrack ahead of time and then tell the story live to [the music], that’s a unique piece to myself.”

This blend of story, instrumentation and sound effects takes the closed-eyed ­listeners on a gentle, sensory journey through their own imaginations. The sound effects are ­created by a unique ­collection of ­instruments from across the globe that Kimmitt has assembled over the last decade.

“I ended up with this continuously ­growing, elaborate collection of sound tools that are the most ecstatic little ­family of sounds that I could imagine,” says ­Kimmitt. By layering them upon each other through the use of a loop pedal she can “create every kind of atmosphere ­imaginable.”

Some of her favourites in the ­family include the Jaw Harp, which has a “­mischievous travelers energy” and the Wind Ocarina, a traditional Mexican instrument that effectively duplicates ­different types of wind. This sound often facilitates or foreshadows a shift in the story, bringing literal meaning to the phrase “winds of change.”

Despite her place atop the non-existent storytelling totem, Kimmitt would ­welcome community and competition and hopes that in the future storytelling regains it’s popularity of the past.

“I think that by doing it, it’s kind of like being the change I want to see, because I’d really love to see and feel and a hear more stories being told.”

Although Kimmitt has no future story times marked on the calendar her first ­volume of stories can be heard at ­sacredstorytelling.bandcamp.com. She can also be found at facebook.com/­cocokami.wing. She hopes to have a ­second volume out by the beginning of summer.

© Copyright 2013