Alaska
Native Actress, Storyteller & Weavers Lily Hudson
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Lily Hudson, Tlingit Storyteller,
performing "Ei How, The Salmon Boy Story"
at the Smithsonian's National Museum for the American
Indian, November 2006. |
Storytelling and I go way back to Arnold Lobel’s Owl
at Home, The Berenstain Bears, and The Runaway
Bunny. Like many children who get to hear books read aloud
repeatedly, I memorized the stories before I could read individual
words.
My passion for performing stories grew throughout childhood,
during which I played various roles in Pagosa Pretender’s
family theatre productions — my favorite being the grunting
grandfather of Billy Bronco in a spoof of Willy Wonka, “Billy
Bronco and the Choco-Taco Factory”.
In 2001, I attended Beyond Heritage, the budding
annual festival of traditional and contemporary Alaskan performance
art in Juneau, Alaska. Producer Ishmael Hope (Tlingit /Inupiaq
Eskimo) brought together numerous storytellers, singers, filmmakers
and poets for an exploration of merging cultures.
Years later, when the University of Alaska Southeast announced
the Native Oratory Contest with a storytelling division, I
went to my Tlingit grandmother, Irene Loling Sarabia Lampe
and asked her to tell me the Salmon Boy story she used to
tell us. I memorized and performed our T’akdeintaan
(Sea Tern) clan story — and took first place —
both in Juneau and at the statewide competition in Anchorage,
Alaska.
My awards at the University spurred my learning and sharing
of our Tlingit stories with the Juneau schools, the community,
and often with audiences outside Alaska, all the way to Washington,
DC.
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