LL-L "Traditions" 2010.03.30 (04) [EN]

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 30 March 2010 - Volume 04*
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Traditions" 2010.03.30 (01) [DE-EN-NDS]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Traditions

> Here’s just an explanatory note about the tradition Hanne calls
> Bänkelsang and I know as Moritat or Moritatensingen. In English I
> would describe these as “street ballads, usually performed with
> accompanying picture sheets.” It is also called “cantastoria,” an
> Italian loanword. These were particularly popular when there was still
> a lot of illiteracy or semi-literacy and this was welcome
> entertainment for poor folk.

This sort of entertainment is alive and well here in the UK, but not
really in ballad form, unless you're talking about the sheer length of
some of these displays. As far as I've seen, the narrative is just
spoken over a series of pictures.

The "Cantastoria" I've seen are mainly educational in intent, rather
than entertaining. Some of the techniques described in the Wikipedia
article are certainly used, though naturally a lot of it is modernised.
I've seen laser pens used to illuminate parts of the pictures rather
than just lamps, as described in the article, and often a projector is
used to project the series of pictures onto a screen.

Some of the Cantastoria aren't terribly artistic or skillfully
presented. Sometimes they can seem quite bizarre in their ineptitude,
without pictures or even drawings on the screen, but just bits of text
which the "balladeer" simply expands upon, sometimes at great length,
though others are known to simply read the text straight off the screen
at their doubtless bored and longsuffering audience.

I understand that "Cantastoria" translates into English as "PowerPoint",
isn't that right?

Oh, and if you don't get a chance to read this until Thursday morning,
may I just say, April Fool  :)

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/



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