Stories

Lance argued that part of the appeal of Carapace was people hearing these “me too” stories. I asked why people come to Carapace to hear those stories. Are they not available other places? I have gotten the sense that people sometimes tell stories at Carapace that they would not share anywhere else and Lance confirmed my suspicions.

there were a number of

folks would get up and tell this story

and it'd be highly personal

and it’d be highly emotional

or something

and then afterwards they'd come up and tell us

I've never told that story to anybody.

Never told that story to my family

never told it to my friends

never told it to anybody else.

I don't know why I told it tonight.

Storytellers have said that they haven’t told their story - in a performance, on social media, or anecdotally among family and friends - in any way or place before Carapace. The “I don’t know why” indicates how hard it is to get at what it is about Carapace that allows people to tell these stories there. Even the storyteller can’t articulate it. Lance suggested that telling difficult stories helps people release emotional baggage:

Some of the really

emotional stories like that

you have to get that out of your system.

He thought that people feel more free to share these stories among strangers: “being in a room full of strangers, there's no judgment.” Strangers can’t go report to your family, for instance, because they don’t know your family.  

Lance said the two most common types of stories were relationship stories (family or romantic) and stories of traumatic experiences.