 Hello. Welcome to Think Tech. I'm Crystal, and I usually have my show on Quok Talk, but today is a special day on behalf of Outreach College at UH Manoa. UH Presents is providing a very fun and cultural storytelling performance tonight. So I'm going to introduce our wonderful guest who's going to tell lots and lots of stories, I hope, so we'll learn everything we need to learn about Ireland. At this point, let me introduce my lovely guest all the way from Ireland, Neil DeBurke. Welcome, Neil. Loha. It's great to be here, Crystal. You're supposed to answer in like Gaelic or something, right? Well, Gielic, especially Neil DeBurke, he's from Scotland, and I'm going to introduce him to you. Thank you. Perfect. That's exactly what I thought. That means my name is Neil DeBurke. I'm from Galway. I live in Dublin. I'm Loha. It's mighty to be here. So you're just a Scali from Gaelic. What's the town you're from? Galway? From Galway, the west of Ireland, on the Wild Atlantic Way. You got that right. It's a Scali, you said it. A Scali. I was once called a Scali, but it's a Scali, and that means it's a simple translation. It means storyteller. There's another word for it too, shalachee, but I've another 20 years before I get that. Okay. So we're talking ancient, ancient times, as your stories do kind of develop the inspiration from. Now, let's talk about the storytelling. You know, I told my daughter, in fact, I was driving her to rehearsal earlier, and I said, I'm going to be interviewing a storyteller. She says, that's what he does. That's his job. And people think, wow, what kind of a person has a job as a storyteller? I'm a very lucky man. So an old man on stage when I was a kid, and I thought, that's me. And I'm very lucky in that my parents, if you met my parents, you'd know why I do, why I do, and my aunties. So many people would be aware that Ireland is a very oral culture. It's a very oral culture. And me, I'm just very lucky. I get to tell my stories around Ireland and other places too. So what I do is I tell my story, whoever pays the piper calls the tune. It might be in Galway one day. I actually live in Dublin. Like many Irish emigrated quite young, and then when I come back, I'm based in Dublin because of the travel. But I get home to Galway a lot, but one day you could be in Belfast, you could be down in Cork, you could be in the north side of Cork City, or you could be in the rural Glens of Antrim up the very north. Many viewers might be familiar of that area, because it's on Game of Thrones. A lot of it's from there. Or I could be in Wicklow. You might have heard the TV series, The Vikings. Do you watch that? How authentic is it compared to what you think? Well, we could spend a whole program talking about that. But the fact is that the Vikings are a very real part of the history and tradition of Ireland. In Ireland it's very fascinating. You can tell someone's ancestry by their name. So, for instance, if someone had a name like Cotter or Sorensen, you'd know that it would have a Viking ancestor, or indeed my own name. It's very funny when I come to North America, people say, that can't be an Irish name. And sometimes I think I should call myself Patrick O'Reilly or something. Have you ever done the ancestry.com or whatever you call that, 23? No, I haven't, but it would be interesting to find out. You can tell somebody's paternal ancestor by their surname in Ireland. So my name, Daburka, is simply, it's a Norman surname. OK. And that's Gaelicized. So the Normans came and you'd have names like Gibbons, Dylan, Butler, and Fitzgerald. These would be names that are very Irish names and Burke, Jennings, they would have a Norman ancestor. But throughout history do they kind of transform throughout history? They do. My name originally would have been Daburgo or Daburg. OK. And then in 1333 the family then took Irish law, took Irish traditions, and now it's Daburka in Irish. So going back to your storytelling, is you choose to tell traditional stories. Stories from ancient legends of things that we don't know about. And why? Why do you choose? Why is it so important to talk about traditions and sharing them by storytelling? For me storytelling is very simple. It's share the joy on of the ancestors. And we've got all this corpus of ancient myth and legend. It needs to be told. It needs to be performed live. And for me live performance is very, very important. To sit down and share those ancient myths so long ago are many evil legend. Stories of warriors or stories of strong women. Stories by the landscape was formed. Stories of the goddesses and gods. That's like the poet holding up the mirror. It's the storyteller just holding up the history of the landscape of us as a people and of old peoples. Because the stories are the same no matter where you go. I've heard stories here in Avahi and you could be listening to an Irish hero myth. I've heard stories in Japan and it could be an Irish. You could be sitting in an Irish home listening to a ghost story. They're the same wherever you go. Because people's dreams are fears and desires. They're the same because we're all the same. But the regional differences, how the dreams and the desires and the fears of a people's imagination or the sense of wonder they just dress up differently to fit the tradition in which that story. But do you think that the dreams and imaginations of the younger generation now particularly who are so consumed and obsessed with social media and technology that they lose that concept of that live performance the beauty of telling a story in person, on stage and seeing that acted out these goddesses and big stories of warriors. It's the bit where I slapped the table. Young people are the best. They're great. The teenage audience are the best. People say teenagers can't listen. All we have to do is present bring it up there. They love live performances and they're the greatest audience because if they like it, they'll go, that was great and they're really loyal and if you suck, they'll tell you. So be rolling your eyes. It's up to us as artists and performers to bring that live performance to get out there and show the stories, perform the stories and create new ones too. So have you had an experience where you had such a challenging audience that you didn't care to listen or how do you engage them and bring them in and say, hey. My job as a performer, that's what I'm there to do and I love to do it and I think if you love to do something people respond to it and I've been doing this for quite a while now and I always said that it's the parliament of the fireside the family fireside the university of the fireside where the tails here growing up and you bring them out there they're into their video games they're into watching Netflix or whatever which you can't beat sitting down with a live performance and sometimes you can step out of the story and you can just look in and you can see the audience and you know they're taken to another place and that's what art's about that's what our ancestors did that's when they did the cave paintings they were telling stories, they were educating and that's why it's an honor to be here as part of the cultural outreach program and I feel really privileged that I've been invited to do this and I'm sitting here in November with the sunshine and outside and you've been island hopping for all your different workshops and presentations and performances I was in Oahu yesterday no, this is Oahu I took two days to get here my head was falling off we think we got the guy we flew from Dublin and my cousin was meeting me there at the airport and then I drove across Manhattan with a Bulgarian fellow with Uber and then on to the next airplane I'm only an hour in the air and he says slight issue with the engine so we stopped in LA and had to change planes so I took two days to get here but the point is I'm here and I'm loving it and I was first in Oahu long, long ago and far, far away but you know what? there was a bunch of young people looking up and I loved it and then after that I was on Big Island and I was in Waimia and I did a show on the Kahlui Theater there a fantastic state of the art theater and I just rolled into town and I got a great welcome the audience of Great Fun loved it we did an outreach the next day with young people down by the sea there was a kupuna I hope I'm pronouncing that right kupuna and I told stories of the sea linking the two cultures Polynesia and Ireland and then the kupuna took the fledglings down by the edge of the sea and the waves were crashing in and she talked about how the land how this is where salt was made how her grandfather came to get the salt and talked about the importance of the environment and how things are always changing and how we live within that change so in a way you're inspired by the Hawaiian culture and their ancient stories and you use that in kind of the inspiration I was humbled to be able to be a part of that and I turned around and I saw Mauna Kea Mauna Kea, yeah Mauna Loa and then I saw in the middle the elder she talked about how there was a hillock in the middle and it was made of pure obsidian great for slaying dragons what is the story of dragons in Ireland? no dragons aren't really an Irish thing you know there's the Loch Ness monster, no? well you got the wrong country but I got the green back but the Scots are cousins yeah it's across the way I'm a cousin living in Loch Lomond but no that's the myth of a monster within Loch Ness but within our own tradition I'll tell you about well you know there is of course like over on that Don't forget everybody here let me give you a couple of examples if you go to the west of Ireland and you cross from Galway or County Clare to the Arran Islands you'll go to a place called which is the Serpent's Lair according to the marketeers so it's this wonderful rectangular cut by the ocean cut by nature like a giant swimming pool at the bottom of the base of a cliff it's filled with the ocean's surgeon so there's stories about that the story of the Great River Shannon which is our greatest river there was a mighty serpent who dwelt where the beginning of the river was but he dwelt there and he killed many but there was a druid living on the far Arran Islands and that druid, Gowning, he went and he told that serpent he'd better get out of there it's a long story we haven't got time are you going to tell that one tonight? no actually you have to come again if you happen to be here in Oahu it's tonight but I'll tell you again later but so stories just to finish on that I'm sorry to cut across the story comes from the serpent trying to escape and he gouged out the landscape and then the rain filled it up so there you have the River Shannon the landscape is full of stories every field has a story every river has a story the Kailach the representative of the feminine ancestors and she's casting the stones around the landscape she's forming it so that is at the heart of the ancient culture within the land it is very similar to the Hawaiian culture when you think about how the mountains were made and the goddess created it's really quite interesting the parallels that different ancient cultures have that's why there is that human connection the Maui you would have your demigod Maui we would have Fion Makul or as he's known in some dialects what is the god of Fion isn't the god himself but he represents all of us as we go through our life there's different stories about him and represent Fion as a child Fion as a young man and then Fion as he's growing old his hair is graying and he sees the other young warriors coming through who would have some godly ancestry and you have the ancient gods like Brigid who's goddess of healing goddess of fire goddess of the arts of medicine the great all knowing one and then the morrigan who would be the goddess of war and then you have the stories of mythology stories of landscape stories of kings and queens and warriors stories of saints and sinners and then the stories of the people of the history of the country but then you have to make up new stories too there's so many so when you travel and when you see new things you incorporate your new contemporary stories into the ancient stories or are you inspired by the ancient stories and you see how that applies to contemporary stories my job is to fit the audience so what I do is I stay true to the original tale but I dance with it but I keep the heart of the story as it was so that way you're showing respect to the tradition so if I'm with a bunch of teenagers here in Honolulu or if I'm in Maui then what I do is I need to make it relevant to them so I'll change my language and delivery and throw in elements of 21st century life and then if I'm with a bunch of elders likewise I'll change my energy you can see I'm quite physical in the way I would perform so how do you perform for the Kapunas I'll bring the energy down a bit and also you change our voices sometimes they want you to rock the boat a little bit you kind of dance with it you dance with the audience so there's the five ages the little ones, the babies, the early childhood then there's children, teens and young adults and then you have the elders it's interesting that you say that the teen ages are the most interestingly the better audience for you because they challenge you in a way I saw YouTube clips of you performing in front of young kids just over their heads in awe and it's really wonderful to see so we're going to take a quick break if you don't know who Neil DeBurke is during the quick break time go YouTube or check out his information because he's a wonderful storyteller but you know what, forget it forget I said that because he doesn't like social media you come back here and we'll tell you more about the ancient tales because there's nothing that replaces the beauty of storytelling and oral traditions so don't go away because security matters Hawaii every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios I'll bring you guests, I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe your co-workers safe your family safe, to keep our community safe we want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience so please join me because security matters, aloha and aloha are the hosts of Hawaii in uniform and every Friday at 11 o'clock here on Think Tech Hawaii we bring you the latest in what's happening within the military community and we also invite your response to things that's happening here for those of you who haven't seen the program before again, we invite your participation we're here to give information not disinformation and we always enjoy response from the public but join us here, Hawaii in uniform here on Think Tech Hawaii Hi, we're back here talking story and of the life and beauty of storytelling Irish storytelling with Neil de Berge who's here to perform tonight at the Orvis Auditorium at UH Manoa, so if you happen to be watching this and you have enough time, you check out your calendar and you're free tonight at 7.30 go check it out because as Neil says there's nothing like live performance and I'm intrigued because a lot of people think what does it mean to be a storyteller, a performing storyteller I mean you can tell stories over dinner you know you read story books to kids when they go to bed but what does it mean and what does it distinguish you to be a performing storyteller a professional storyteller traditional one at that and Irish well you'd have the stories growing up see if they're DNA didn't you but also the ones that I create are ones that sometimes I'm asked to present particular stories so what you do is you have to spend a lot of time it's like a guitarist there's a lot of stuff that goes into them being on the stage there's a lot of time spent like I'm here I'm absorbing stuff the whole time and processing it and a couple of stories I tell from my experiences in Hawaii so what happens is you go away and you think it through and then it starts to bubble up and the bubbling up happens when you're relaxed and then a little bit of inspiration comes then you can pop it in somewhere then you're working it tinkering away like a blacksmith but you need to be open for something to and that's the nature of it and I think it's similar with any artist you have to open yourself up you have to give time for that and a lot of the storytelling a lot of the stuff I deal with with the young people and also with children with all ages just take the time we're all in an age of distraction what better thing than just to do nothing for a while and let yourself open up and therein lie the muse then the muse shows herself better than the joy I talked about the stuff that goes into it getting onto the stage but when you're on the stage and you just like tonight's I'm here thanks for coming let's go and we go to another place we go to where the ancestors are or we talk about a new one that I'm rocking in for the fun and people you know live performances I love going to live performance myself and any time I go out on stage I just think about the people who stand you have to get up and speak in public remember you're not on your own but it's not just public speaking for you it's transporting people the art of transporting people back into another time this is something beautiful about that let's transport back into your childhood what kind of created this language for you and this kind of world that you needed to share with the rest of the world growing up well if you look at a chair the four chair that props it up the legs of a chair my four legs would be my father's from a place called County Mayo and I spent a lot of time there as a kid in that landscape with my aunties and cousins and I'm very lucky to have a father who told stories the whole time and my mother is from a place called County Meath she was raised near the banks near the banks of the river Boine which is named after an old goddess and if you flow down the Boine you will come to a place called Bruna Boine which is the mythological heart of the country and in that part of the country the north landscape a wonderful way of being a great way of talking a wonderful way of telling your aunts I also have the city of Galway I'm very lucky I heard they're famous for oysters there if you go to the Galway market on a Saturday and look up Mickey Brown, Mikey Brown he does the best oysters in the whole of Ireland he'll shuck them for you beautiful oysters you'll ever get Michael Brown in the Galway market on a Saturday sometimes Tony Walsh is there helping them and also we spent some time in Clare as a child along Ireland's wild Atlantic way our three of those counties Clare, Galway and Mayo the landscape is where the sea meets the land and where the stories of history have played out we like to think of it you're surrounded by the beauty of nature and mother earth and mountains and water and everything and city too, Galway is like an old medieval city but any Irish town there was a great Irish storyteller called Brian Machman from a place called Lestol in Cary where they have a beautiful dialect and have a beautiful way of the proud of their traditional arts he said he never had to leave Lestol to see the world that the world is in every small town and your own great American Joseph Campbell great Irish American Joseph Campbell said you know within the little tiny drop of water you get the whole thing of life in the universe the drama play of the universe Shakespeare said the whole world's a stage I was just going to say speaking of drama I'm just imagining you as a little kid were you like doing sword fighting were you playing with your siblings or peers with all these kind of imaginary things that people lose now the kids now just lack imagination because everything's just port on to their plate well that's our responsibility now as adults but I think kids have the imagination to get in by doing it the person who's telling the story to the kids tonight is the best storyteller in the world the ma or pa, brother or sister granny or granddad who's reading a book or telling the story to the little ones that's what it's all about you just do it and the kids will respond and now I know teachers are telling me teachers come to my workshops and they're saying the little ones are presenting with the flick flick flick with the iPad thing kids have it there just get in there and tell the stories and play get dirty, take the shoes and socks off and get out of the dirt and live and fall off the tree and get stung by nettles have experiences so it's very straight forward and I love the stories of the ancestors but the new stories too are important because our little ones growing up their mythologies created now so it's important to create the new stories to perform yesterday I was with some men telling stories west of Honolulu and I told a tale that happened to me down in Waianae and I was really enjoying it because the boys were leaning forward so they were like really local so it reared to me that live performance is all about in that moment and shared experience it's like our ancestors sitting around the campfire or sitting around the fire and just that's what it is shared experience, be it music, be it drama and you know this kind of storytelling is the whole point of it is like you said the oral tradition, there are ways to pass knowledge down that western concepts seem to lack in a way, do you want to talk a little bit about that and the importance of why oral tradition is so effective I see it the whole time you can drop in a lesson about bullying in the middle of an old ancient south in the ocean these are all there, it's all been done for us it's all there, I'll give you another example I was in Mumbai I was in Mumbai, a city full of energy in India, a lady called Jogruti came up and she said Nio I think the story you like take it back to Ireland, it's in a book I said Jogruti will you tell me the story she said but what if I leave Bitsar I said tell me the story so we sat down with her friend and she told me the story she said a week later I'm back in a place called Don Leary in South Dublin I'm with a bunch of young people and I jumped to tell the tale two minutes into the story I looked at these ones looking up at me they were like that and I thought that's it that's the power of myth simple easy eyes everyone has it there's this ancient tale of India that mighty ancient culture with a bunch of city Irish kids locked in 21st century style share the joy, honour the ancestors you've reached a good word never broke a tooth let's talk about that, I was going to ask you that and you stole my thunder, what is a good word never broke a tooth? greet the world with a smile on your face and away you go the world stands back and makes a path for those who know where to they wish to go you get to know get out there with a smile on your face try and stand on other people's shoes do you remember that great American writer Harper Lee in her book, Killer Mockingbird Atticus Finch he says to Scout you put yourself in another person's shoes get to perspective and that's what stories have been doing since the get go since the first storytelling session which was in a cave around a fire cave paintings on the wall all around someone jumped up and told that by an experience everybody got to sit and stand on another person's shoes so that's what it is and that's why I think the program the cultural extension program is so important it brings live performance right throughout the islands schools are to libraries to theatres to spaces both indoor and outdoor that's good stuff, that's grist to the middle that builds glue, it builds community so thanks very much to the university for having me over and you're also going continuing you have here you have a couple of workshops here to do and then you're going to another island you want to tell us a little bit about that busy day busy week on Monday I'm off to Maui I'm doing two on Maui and then Tuesday I'm back to Big Island early in the morning and different islands have such different energies Big Island is grand scale the big mighty Pelle looking down and the ocean and then Maui's got another energy and then of course Kauai I hope I'm saying I'm right that's all good and then after and then I leave on Thursday but what's Oahu for you what's the image of Oahu for me it's all the energy the North Shore is completely different than downtown Honolulu but for me it's the moment I get here I get off and I come out I know it's a cliche but I see the Pamfrons and I feel the warm trade winds and I go down to Waikiki so is it a feminine thing I know I think it's a blend of everything it's a blend of everything and I know Honolulu is a big city now the H1 highway it's like Satan's alley so I've had that experience too in all the faces it's like the M50 in Dublin these things are the same all over the world so there's the city thing and then you've got a great music scene here and I'm off to the Bishop Museum support your local museums I'm off to the Bishop it's got an exhibition on Easter Island I haven't had much time but I'm glad you've mentioned museums because you're inspired some of your work is inspired by museum exhibitions I love that idea I love it I was wondering if you go to the Bishop Museum maybe you can find something to create news stories from that indeed because Rapa Nui the exhibition's on there at the moment so I'm going to go there and then I'm going back to the ocean because it's a fahit and I'm getting in that water yes he's surrounded by there was a lot of people in the water yesterday and he ran over a couple the apologies but a couple of people nearly ran over me too it's like Mad Max out there this is you know Hawaii it's great fun it's great fun I'm loving it do you want to tell a little bit about tonight's performance and yeah it's at the Orvis the Orvis others at the University at 730 kickoff and I'll be telling tales from home and a couple others besides 730 sharp and thank you very much once again to the University Outreach Program and thank you very much to Clock Talk for having me on thank you Neil but give us like some little words of wisdom from the Irish tales give us just a little something to bring us back to another world give us an image leave us with something as I stood by the edge of the big island and I saw the waves crash in I cast my mind to that other island Ireland separated by thousands of miles but really the people are the very same we are molded by our environment we are molded by our ancestors and we've got these little ones coming up now after us and we're molding them in a better way than to sit down tell a yarn or open a book and share a reading experience and to enjoy this path that we're all on together to look out for each other getting very deep here for a Saturday morning down to that University tonight I'm going to be sharing many of your yarn and enjoy storytelling and keep oral traditions alive like Neil says and good luck for the rest of your stay here wonderful stories continue as we say in Irish thank you very very much