FILLING THE ARTISTIC NEEDS OF A CITY

• Storyteller David Alexander is East Prairie's latest artist in residence.

By Sam Blackwell

EAST PRAIRIE, Mo. As the second largest town in a county ranked third worst in the state for children, East Prairie is a place where hardship and even poverty are as familiar as the flat landscape. The farm community of 3,400 has no stoplights, one factory that is closing and one artist in residence.

The Sweet Corn Festival, Christmas parade and Living History Day pass for cultural events in East Prairie. That's why over the past decade a group of arts lovers armed with a grant has brought two dancers, a ceramic artist, a storyteller, a visual artist and theatrical productions to town for month-long residencies and for performances that expose students and townspeople to the arts.

East Prairie's latest arts import is another storyteller, a Kansan who in August began a three-month residency that has him teaching in the school, creating storytelling circles in the community and performing at festivals and churches. David Alexander is here through a National Endowment for the Arts program called Artists & Communities: America Creates for the Millennium, which chose East Prairie as the lone Missouri site to host an artist in residence.

From a pool of 225 artists across the nation, Alexander was one of two invited to East Prairie to interview for the residency. The other, a talented and creative dancer from Brooklyn, envisioned the townspeople dancing beneath one of the irrigation systems seen on the farms that surround the town.

"She was just too far out," said Pat Helms, a member of the East Prairie Committee for the Arts.

The personable Alexander fit into the community well. He was a classroom teacher for 27 years and at one time wanted to be a comedian. Since discovering at a storytelling conference that some people tell tales for a living, he has taught storytelling all over the U.S. as well as in Bolivia, Borneo, Peru, Beijing and Seoul and is now a full-time storyteller.

One day last week, Alexander was teaching a high school psychology class how to reduce a written story to a grid of drawings and then reinterpret the drawings as a verbal performance. After listening to them, he pronounced the class amazingly full of "natural storytellers."

A natural storyteller, he says, is "somebody who unconsciously lets go of the words, puts movement into the story and expression into the words. An excitement comes through in a natural way."

Monday nights, he meets with a storytelling circle he established at Prairie Groves retirement home. You don't elicit stories by asking someone to tell one, Alexander says. "You ask them to take us on a trip to a classroom you remember well. What did that room look and smell like? Get them to go and take us on a trip. ... You ask them, Why is that water tower in town rusting out on one side? What did that museum downtown used to be. Was there ever a drugstore? Suddenly the whole things opens up like a flood."

Alexander knows 15 hours worth of stories seven hours of original material, the rest stories in the public domain. Many emanate from his travels and teaching experiences in Africa and Asia.

He also is an author and has one book titled "What the Kids Taught Me." "There are different students who have taught me more than I taught them," he said.

First of the many goals of Alexander's residency is to teach students and residents about the importance of stories as a way of transferring wisdom.

Before leaving East Prairie in November, he will organize and lead a storytelling festival for students and the people of East Prairie.

During his stay, the 52-year-old Alexander has met some of East Prairie's own storytellers, including Teddy Bennett, known around town as "The Pillar of Truth." "He's always got a gleam in his eye and he always tells the truth," Alexander says of Bennett. "Though sometimes his stories are as true as he can make them."

Storytelling is a tradition handed down from ancient cultures in which elders sat before a fire to recount the legends of their people. One of the modern substitutes isn't as good, Alexander says.

"We're spending too much time in front of the TV. We're letting TV become the elder. We're surfing around searching for something that interests us, and it's really sitting right next to us on the couch."

From listening to the local stories, he has learned that life in East Prairie has its hardships, its floods and tornadoes and farm accidents. "It's living from hand to mouth with little in the way of material rewards. At the same time being enormously generous, pitching in and feeding people who can't cook for themselves," he said.

Alexander praises those who think East Prairie needs art.

"There is a group in town that has a vision that this place can lift itself from the poverty that is here," he says.