Safe Space

As I look at Carapace as a safe space, it is interesting to me that although the storyteller’s safety is prioritized, there are little things that help make the audience feel more safe. The physical comfort of being in a pleasant, public location helps. Joyce mentioned another comforting aspect of holding the event in a bar:

If it's going to be open

and you can't really curate it,

and you can't really plan it.

At least let people drink what they want to drink

and eat what they wanted.

Give them some control over their destinies for the evening.

Carapace is open (as in anyone can tell a story). Not all the stories might be “good.” But the audience is okay with that because they have access to good food and drink and have “some control over their destinies.”

Also on the issue of safe space, Joyce got at the dark side of storytellers sharing very personal stories.

I've had a change of mind about this.

I used to love that kind of stuff.

Then I read an article

some therapist wrote about all of this.

They said that

the stage is no place to work out

your issues.

Sometimes people aren’t really ready to tell those stories. Instead of being therapeutic, it is damaging.

When storytellers go too vulnerable, rather than facilitating a relationship between the teller and the audience, it can create a distance. Joyce talked about the storyteller needing distance, not wanting to be around the community after oversharing.

I would say that

there's been people who have shown up.

They've told something very personal

and I've never seen them again.

She has seen a less extreme version of this happen with “regulars” as well.

I can tell sometimes when storytellers

even regular

have gone a little bit too vulnerable.

I can just see them

weirded out a little bit

and they'll disappear for a few events.

And I can--

I suppose it could just be life circumstances.

I suppose they thought like they went a little bit far

and maybe need a little bit of distance.

They need to recalibrate

and they'll be back

and they do

but there's some people that don't.

People might be willing to risk telling a vulnerable story because the audience members are strangers.

There's something about

that stranger-on-the-bus phenomenon

that I think people

do get up on that mic and

do it for that reason

because they don't know anybody and they

want some kind of connection.

But this isn’t always completely true. Joyce said that after telling her own story she got an email:

I didn't know who was in the audience.

I got an email from The Georgia Gardner.

She also had other people try to talk to her about the story and some of the hearers are now regulars, no longer strangers:

There were strangers who've

come up

and there are a few people who are regulars,

who are still here that remember it.

The “safety” of telling a story to strangers may not be as safe as it appears.

I’ve been wondering about the audience as strangers because, personally, even when I first started coming to Carapace, I knew others who had come with me: my mother, my husband. And I’ve had one experience where there was someone I didn’t know I knew in the audience - an acquaintance from high school who spoke to me after the show. It was very jarring. The audience isn’t always as “strange” as they appear.