Full listings for Funda Fest available at fundafest.org
Luis Hernandez: So Valerie, my understanding is that there were two events or two moments that really inspired you to start this festival. What were they?
Valerie Tutson: Well, I had designed my own major in college called storytelling as a communications art. And I was loving traveling the country, visiting other storytelling festivals. We also had a storytelling festival here in Rhode Island. But the one in the country that I loved was our National Black Storytelling Festival. When I got there, I was so excited to see so many different kinds of Black Storytellers. And I really, really wanted, particularly the Black kids that I was working with in the city of Providence to have that experience. So the Rhode Island Foundation was doing a project called “I’ll make me a world” and they were looking for programming to celebrate Black arts and artists and community. And I had just come back from South Africa, where I have a very good friend named Gcina Mhlophe, who’s a storyteller there. And we had been to a place called the Funda Center. And Funda in Zulu means to learn. So it was an art learning center. But if you look at the word, it looks like fun. So I was like, ooo. Let’s call our festival, Funda, because it looks like fun. And it means to learn. And we know in our culture, and in every culture, that storytelling was the first way that all peoples have learned who they are, how they are, you know why we are the stuff that we are in the world today. So that’s how we got started.
Hernandez: How would you briefly describe the evolution of this festival?
Tutson: Well, one of the main parts of our evolution has been really getting ourselves to the schools and the community organizations throughout our region. So now we reach over 50 schools, and not just in Rhode Island. Now we actually go into the borders of nearby Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Hernandez: So you bring storytellers in. Antonio, you’re one of the storytellers who’s going to be presenting a workshop on January 21. So the piece that you’re doing is called “A Slave Ship called Malaga.” Yeah, and this isn’t just this, this isn’t just a reading you, you perform there’s, there is so much that you put your body into the storytelling, not just your words. Can you describe a little bit about what people are going to see?
Antonio Rocha: This is my newest historical piece. And it is the story of a slave ship that was built in Maine in 1832. And used illegally in Brazil to bring, illegally to traffic Africans from, into South America into Brazil. And even though it was prohibited to bring Africans across the Atlantic after 1808, there was a surge in, in illegal trafficking. When I perform this piece, in particular, there is a lot of movement. There is the boat, I play the boat quite a bit, that – as a matter of fact, the story is told from the boat’s point of view. It starts with the trees in Maine being selected, being told by grandmother Douglas fir, that you know, she foresees what the trees are going to become. So there’s this whole folkish-like tale beginning to the story. I start with a song depicting the lumber floating down the river to the bay.
[song excerpt from “A Slave Ship called Malaga”]
And then Malaga is born 1832, gets her sea legs, you know, I do a whole, you know, launching and she’s super excited. She’s never been out of the woods before. And she has no idea what she’s getting into, because she gets auctioned off over and over until she finds herself in the illegal trade.
Hernandez: Valerie, can you give me a sense of, I mean, this is – from just that story alone is fascinating. But can you give me a sense of some of the other stories and the other things that people are gonna get to experience?
Tutson: You know, one of the reasons I was really excited to highlight Antonio’s piece is because we decided this year that we’re going to do a whole day that we’re calling Black History Live, so that people can hear some of the unknown or lesser known stories that come from our history. So, for example, Rochelle Garner Coleman is going to do a Shadow Ball case, which is a highlight of Cool Papa Bell of the Negro Leagues. And then in the evening, that day, we will also have Becky bass, who’s a local, incredible artist, and she will do Sissieretta Jones, who was an opera diva that came from Providence.
Hernandez: We’ve seen around the country lately, you know, this push by some people to silence certain voices. And they’ve done it under the pretense of, well, you know, we want to keep this idea of critical race theory out of schools. And it’s not about that so much that I want to talk about, but just that you could accidentally or purposefully shove a lot of voices into that one category and silence them. This festival is about sharing those voices and knowing history from many perspectives, but I just wanted your take on what you, what you’re seeing happening in this country right now. You know, this battle, this, you know, social battle over our history, and over what voices get to speak that history. Valerie, you first.
Tutson: One thing I would say is, it’s not new. Anytime Black people rise to power and begin to get a spotlight and be recognized as fully human, there’s always the backlash to try to silence. Maybe that is why looking at our folklore is so key, because Anansi and Brer Rabbit could say and do things that people who knew what they were doing understood – it was coded language that empowered people to understand that even though somebody’s got a hand on your foot or on your neck, they don’t own your soul, they don’t own your being, they don’t own your humanity, because you are still able to survive. So for me, like we’re still doing what we’ve been doing for 25 years, and you know, in the wake of George Floyd and when for a minute Black people were, you know, the hot thing that everybody wanted to include until it got too uncomfortable, you know, we’re still doing what we do, because this has been the way we have survived all this time.
Rocha: Well, I second everything that Valerie has just said. And also there is another component of it historically, now it’s coming out more and more, of the involvement of the Northeast of the United States in the slavery trade. You know, it’s not to make people uncomfortable. The same way people don’t feel uncomfortable when, about the Salem witch trials in which they drowned women. You know, when everybody learns that in school, you know, and it’s like, what is the difference here? You know, in a way, it’s an absurd thing that happened, and it’s okay to teach it in school. Why not teach about slavery?
Hernandez: Valerie, Antonio, thank you so much for the opportunity, and continued success with the festival, Valerie.
Tutson: Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having us.
Rocha: Thank you, yes.
