“Community isn’t just a place with people; it’s a creative practice. While Wallingford folks may know the Ubuntu Storytellers from the series produced at WPAA-TV, their latest evolution—USA (Ubuntu Storytellers & Allies)—suggests that curating stories from elsewhere empowers effectively too. I caught up with them this week at the Wallingford Public Library where silence was broken and ‘incidental allyship’ took center stage. I encourage you to read, listen, and perhaps find the courage to step into a shared space yourself. Our communal healing depends on it.” Susan Adele Huizenga
WPAA-TV had the privilege of hosting Ubuntu Storytellers in Wallingford in two series that showcased Black, Brown, and biracial performers telling stories of “being,” as well as of “being in the skin they’re in.” Recently, the Wallingford Public Library welcomed the community to an evening of stories with a new twist in the lineup: some tellers would share stories of allyship.
As a long-time host and advocate for these tellers, I was beyond curious. The acronym USA initially confused me, then in an ‘aha’ moment it became immediately apt: Ubuntu Storytellers & Allies. As always, the seven stories in ‘The Long Echo of a Moment’ were true, personal, and universal. On this evening, solo voices in a shared space created a sensorial connection that spoke bravely of the importance of creating room for connection.
The program began with a story set years earlier in California during the initial Obama election. It was personalized with a T-shirt screened “everyone matters” and a love story. The teller established the scene, then the tension of the election outcomes: the failure of a local referendum alongside the national, unifying win of Obama. The scale of referendum votes against same-sex marriage adjacent to a presidential victory clobbered my listening. I felt this story’s evolution. It felt different now versus when the teller’s marriage was ‘legalized’. It no longer feels safe, or even ‘correct’ to wear the T-shirt “everyone matters” no matter its truth.
Thea Iberall’s story, “Are We There Yet?”, echoes like a child in the backseat of a car anticipating arrival at a fantastic destination. Yet it is told in the broken spirit of speeches and books anchored in the currents of history, asking: “Where Do We Go From Here?” This story and the new format expose the answer: No, We Are Not There Yet. Maybe we are Becoming.
As before, Ms. Keyes, the Ubuntu Storytellers founder, lavishly introduces the tellers. It feels as if she wants them to be credible to the audience before we hear a single word. They are worthy of this stage; accept and listen.
Next, a journalist shares a transformational story about finding purpose, an awareness of the current generation’s sense of inheritance, and her unexpected fandom. She discovers Greta Thunberg and “Shoulders Joy,” both physically and metaphorically. Her encounters yearn; they are full of weight. We glimpse the power of representation and the unsaid, wishing to find a way to fill the unfathomable gap. Bekah Wright is clearly still trying, as we all should be.
An awareness of how personal stories echo differently across time sets the stage for other intergenerational insights into “gaps” in our communal knowing. But first, we experience a cage with Wendy Marans’ story, “But I Didn’t.” Observation and self-talk become a haunting silence. With role ambiguity, boundaries can come into awkward conflict with moral values. Too often, silence is our response to our observations. She reminds us that the hollow feeling is anything but silent.
The aspirations revealed in “The Method” by an Ubuntu teller perform as a backdrop to self-revelation once again. Universal self-discovery is at the core of Jezrie Marcano Courtney’s storytelling. Jezrie examines fragility and the serendipity of circumstance, taking us back to her days as an acting student. The differences elevated by the Uta Hagen’s “Place” technique in the sensorial recreation of personal space—to find truth—sets the stage for an incidental allyship and unanticipated trust. One father’s motto is a handle to another’s safe embrace. Told is another student’s “coming out” journey—a story of quiet introspection, family, and universal hugs.
Cindy Rivka Marshall’s “My German Friend” was prerecorded. Her Zoomed-in appearance at the end of the evening affirmed how a story can be both ageless and locked in time—persistent. Anchored in the weight of Holocaust history, distant in years and generations, time did not lighten the burden of division cloaked in silence. What lifted the unsaid and unhealed was entering into challenging spaces side-by-side.
“The Long Echo of A Moment” is the tough, stabilizing sinew of this curated collection. The geometry of the decisions we make can have multiple proofs; we may not know if an answer is truly right until others see it in us or with us. Denise Manning Keyes Page also reaches across generations for affirmation and recognizes the burden of silence that found power in those gaps’ decades before. A tutor rescues ‘in secret’; empowering an unfolding, restless talent.
A new Ubuntu member, Tennette Correia, emerges from the ashes in “Unexpected Ally.” Without question, this was the story to conclude the evening. Loss and absence led the audience to a new understanding. It was a heart-wrenching story whose hope can be discovered when we see ourselves sitting on a park bench, talking with a stranger. Conversations in safe places—a salve.
As with most story events, the room was not filled with questions and discussion in the time set aside for Q&A. However, the audience did line up to speak one on one with the tellers. Digesting this seven-course menu will take more than the wink of time after applause. It gave me much to think about. Thanks for reading.
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