Weaving stories and dreams
Anklets clinking, the little table set up with the candles twinkling and two little papillon dogs sitting quietly in their beds.
Walking into a primary school classroom, you knew the Dreamweaver was there to spin her storytelling magic.
Whether you’ve heard her in Southland schools or not, chances are you know about the Dreamweaver, Liz Miller.
She’s been enthralling audiences with her fantastical tales for more than 50 years and, at nearly 80 years old, she’s not showing any signs of showing down.
For many a Southlander she’s told a thrilling tale or two, a feeling she has drawn in the very fabric of her persona. ‘‘I chose Dreamweaver because telling stories [is] like dreams, you weave them,’’ she said.
And it’s weaving those stories that keeps her love for the craft strong.
‘‘They make me laugh, they make me cry, they make me shiver sometimes,’’ she said.
‘‘When you share stories . . . it’s like you connect and I can see what’s happening in their eyes.’’
Many people will remember Miller shuffling into their school, wearing her wondrous storytelling clothes and her dogs, Bonnie and Candy, following obediently.
‘‘They know every school, they run in and shoot to their beds and sit down,’’ she said.
Bonnie and Candy know the drill – most of the time Miller doesn’t hear a peep out of them.
She didn’t consider herself to be much of a pet person, but dogs have become her family.
‘‘They’re part of me, they’re my family and for dogs they need to be part of a pack to behave.’’
Starting out as a librarian in the 1960s in the children’s library, storytelling is something which is second nature to Miller.
Growing up, she loved listening to her parents’ stories of their own childhoods and finding out where they had come from, something Miller believed was less prevalent in today’s generation.
During the past few years, there had been times where children couldn’t tell her where their parents came from, she said.
‘‘I like [storytelling] it because stories tell me things I didn’t know before.
‘‘They take me places I haven’t gone and they tell me about who I am and where I come from.’’
The emotional experience of stories and the truth found in them is something very dear and important to her as a storyteller.
It’s with a clear mind she remembers the very first time she felt the pain of a story character – she was three years old and her mother had recounted Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl for her.
After the little girl dies of hypothermia in the cold Danish winter, Miller said she cried for days. ‘‘I felt that child’s pain, I did, I knew it.’’
Emotional experiences and finding truth in stories was important to Miller, though some children struggle with the idea of truth.
‘‘It depends on what you call truth. It’s not factual but it is the truth that never changes,’’ she said. ‘‘What [the story] says to them is not my business.’’
Despite changing technologies, Miller said that hasn’t affected children’s ability to listen to a story, but thought too much emphasis was placed on using technology in schools.
‘‘We think of it as vital when it’s just a tool,’’ she said.
‘‘People say how do you keep them entertained for an hour.
‘‘That has never changed, people still love stories.’’
Liz Miller is organising Celebrating Story for the Southland Festival of the Arts, an event with international storytellers Antonio Rocha and Dovie Thomason. The festival starts on April 26.