Bernice Afriyie | Arts Editor
Featured image: “Stories and sounds are both so powerful, and when they come together in an artwork, the product is unreal,” says York alumna Joanna Chapman-Smith. | Courtesy of Joanna Chapman-Smith
Oral storytelling and the rich myths that have resulted from this ancient practice are something that many cultures around the world lay claim to. Whether it be fairy tales, fables or parables involving tricksters or princesses, many of us grew up on folktales from around the world.
The beauty of folktales is that they are always changing and are reborn with every retelling. Joanna Chapman-Smith, York graduate and singer, adds her own touch to folktales from around the world. She weaves narratives from Canada, Africa, the United States, Asia, Europe and New Zealand into a fantastic album about Elon, a young inhabitant of the imaginary City of Stone.
Her latest release, Elon and the City of Stone, beautifully merges storytelling with lyricism. The tracks in the album switch between songs to Chapman-Smith sharing stories about Elon.
“One by one, I was inspired to create the 12 songs on this album, then finally decided that writing a new frame story to string all the songs together would be the best way to present this collection,” shares Chapman-Smith.
Not only does the album draw content from diverse oral histories, but the form of the album mimics the tradition of retelling as well.
“My understanding of the shape and form of a story helped me to communicate […] all the ideas and feelings I wanted to express through song,” notes Chapman-Smith. “I have also changed my vocal delivery of songs a great deal, bringing in more expressivity, reflective of speech patterns.”
In Western culture, our understanding of fairy tales is greatly influenced by popular revisions from the Brothers Grimm or Disney films. Disney and the Grimms put their own spin on these tales, like the worldly cultures these tales originated in, yet their takes receive more note than other versions.
Elon and the City of Stone works against the monolithic fairy tale by paying tribute to cultures around the world that have provided us with the range of stories, with narratives throughout the album that run contrary to popular retellings.
“I was inspired to write songs based on folktales when my love of strange stories from beyond the Disney lexicon was kindled in 2008.
“The tales I was reading and discovering were so rich, expressing strong and unfamiliar messages, yet were so familiar and contained all the archetypes I recognized from more mainstream media,” shares Chapman-Smith.
Canonical fairy tales raise questions of cultural appropriation that Chapman-Smith tries not to repeat with her album. For one, she started off by researching hundreds of lesser-known and popular folktales. The album does not blindly take these stories out of their context and use them as a means to the album’s end. Each fairy tale is credited in the album release.
“I often feel like a post-modern cosmopolitan baby, and I have struggled with this question a great deal in the straight telling of tales during my live shows,” says Chapman Smith on how she deals with questions of cultural appropriation.
“Having grown up in Toronto, studied a great deal of contemporary music and with my own ambiguous heritage, I move between my various cultural influences in my work.
“Even when I pay homage to my [New Zealand] roots, there is the conflict of British colonialism in my lineage there, so it is hard to get away from questions of power and voice as I approach my influences.
The ultimate judge as to whether or not these songs, or any other cultural or artistic practice, respectfully deals with cultural artifacts is the culture itself.
“I truly feel that when I write a song based on a tale, I am re-imagining the story enough through my own lens to do it justice, to point listeners toward the original and to create my own work from my own mixed-up-cultural perspective.”
Elon and the City of Stone was released on November 11 and launched on November 20 at Hugh’s Room, where listeners had the chance to draw their own conclusions from Chapman-Smith’s electrifying performance. The story of Elon is one of magic and allure that adds to the changing body of folktales.
