Bringing the page to life

In the gothic classroom, amid dusty books and opaque lighting, a distant world is enlivened by the enchanting tale of an animated woman with intense blue eyes and a welcoming smile.

At first glance, it appears that the audience of students in WRI 156w: The Writer in the Community — which was offered last spring — is too mature to appreciate listening to stories, and instead should be poring over esoteric novels and treatises. Yet a mesmerizing force in the petite woman's lively voice seems to attract students to the story. A calm stillness pervades the room, as the radiator hums softly in the background. All eyes intently focus forward.

It is soon clear that when storyteller Susan Danoff '75 speaks, people — no matter how old — listen.

"When I was growing up I never heard of storytelling," Danoff said of the art form that differs from simply "reading stories" in that the presenter relies on memorization and improvisation rather than an open book. Many of these stories come from ancient folklore, tales with underlying messages or themes shared orally from generation to generation.

"Storytelling is different than holding a book and sharing it with people," she continued in a soft voice that reflects her calm demeanor, her petite stature straightening in an oversized, red easy chair in the Forbes College lounge. "You have to rely on yourself. The tale comes through all of you. The storyteller disappears and the world of imagination appears."

One might have trouble imagining the 5'3, soft-spoken Danoff morphing into the peasants, leprechauns, tigers and various other characters that fill her stories. Her unassuming style of dress — today she sports a comfortable teal sweater, olive running pants and sneakers, her shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair held back loosely by a small hair clip – seems to confirm this belief. But in this respect, one easily would be fooled.

A seasoned professional, Danoff has been in the storytelling business for more than 20 years, though it was not until 1996 that she founded the professional storytelling company, Storytelling Arts, Inc.

In her junior and senior years at the University, Danoff gained storytelling experience by reading children's stories on WPRB's "Children's Hour," which aired live at 7:30 a.m. Sunday mornings.

"Imagine how few students were awake then. Nobody listened to the show," she chuckled in a lighthearted tone that belies the intense dedication she devotes to her profession. "But we loved doing the program. We'd get up and stumble over to the radio station. We didn't care if anyone was listening," she said, adding that all her friends at the University were part of the broadcast at least once — some read stories on the air and others chose the music that accompanied the tales.

"Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White, "13 Clocks" by James Thurber and "Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame were among her favorite stories to tell. "I did what I felt read well, what was appealing to me."

While Danoff was certainly a professional while on the job, she said she remembers one morning when she and her friends burst into uncontrollable laughter on the air — a forbidden foible.

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"You're not supposed to laugh on the radio," she mused, a mischievous grin forming on her face. "But it's so funny when you hear someone else laughing on the radio. Somebody heard us and said he fell out of bed laughing."

Danoff thoroughly enjoys what she does. As a child, she loved the arts and considered the theater "the most excellent thing." The youngest of two sisters, Danoff played guitar and piano, and loved to sing and dance. "We learn a lot through the arts," she said. "We forget that art is a very, very important part of life."

Though Danoff enjoys many forms of art, literature is her primary passion. "I couldn't wait to learn to read," she said, adding that nonfiction books and biographies were at the top of her reading list when she was young.

"I always thought reading was something you did at home for fun and not something you did in school," she said.

As much as Danoff always loved reading and the arts, she said the real turning point in cementing her love of storytelling came in the fall of 1979 when Diane Wolkstein, credited with helping to revive modern storytelling, began telling stories at the Princeton Public Library.

"People say there's one event that can change your life, and this did," she explained.

However, before becoming a professional storyteller, Danoff pursued her other love — teaching. After graduation, with the help of the Princeton in Asia program, Danoff — a former East Asian Studies major with a concentration in Chinese — taught English to Chinese-speaking students at Tunghai University in Taiwan. She then earned her English teaching credential at the University of California at Berkeley and a master's degree in English from Rutgers University, where she met her husband, Neal.

Danoff hoped to teach college again, but the minimal pay for adjunct professors at local colleges presented a formidable obstacle. "One of the community colleges here in New Jersey paid $750 a semester for teaching English," she said with an incredulous shake of the head. "I just couldn't do it."

But Danoff soon found the chance to return to teaching undergraduates — at the same institution where she earned her own bachelor's degree. In the fall of 1983, she accepted a position instructing expository writing and a literature course at the University.

She taught at Princeton for nine years until the birth of her now 8-year-old son, Jonah, whom she uses to test out new stories. In addition, she has taught writing for the Freshman Scholars Institute, held workshop series for the University art museum and the residential colleges and currently directs "The Art of Storytelling," a week-long summer institute for adults, which is co-sponsored by the University's teacher preparation program.

"Princeton winds itself through my life somehow," she said in her naturally laid-back tone, using her petite hands to help convey her thoughts.

Since 1996, Danoff and the 13 other freelance members of Storytelling Arts, Inc. have shared their talents with numerous children and adults through programs designed to help special needs groups such as urban schools and detention centers, children for whom English is a second language and children with disabilities.

These programs are funded by support from large national foundations, smaller state and local organizations and area school districts. As part of the New Jersey public schools program, Danoff and her storytellers not only teach a love of reading but also help students with language comprehension and writing skills. Bilingual preschoolers are told stories both in English and in Spanish, while older students are encouraged to draw pictures of their favorite parts of the story and to retell the scene in their own words.

Last year alone, Storytelling Arts reached 1,500 children in the central and north New Jersey area.

Danoff said she particularly enjoys storytelling for young listeners, who like to involve themselves in the stories — especially the tales that encourage children to chime in with chorus-like lines or gestures.

"Children take great pleasure in the repetitive," she said. "They'll come in even if they don't know the story."

While Danoff's daily responsibilities mainly involve management and organizational tasks, she said she now is storytelling every other week for 15- to 17-year-old boys at the Mercer County Juvenile Detention Center. Danoff also said she is conducting a long-term assessment project at Cook Elementary School in Plainfield, where she will follow two kindergarten classes throughout elementary school to study the effects of storytelling on a child's learning experience.

"Storytelling is a very old method of teaching that was forgotten. It's a piece missing in education and could have a positive effect on children's learning," she explained confidently.

Danoff backs this assertion with touching vignettes of troubled children who have responded positively to storytelling. She vividly describes one student in a class who was part of the New Jersey Council on the Arts' Artists in Education Program:

Felicia, a timid seventh-grade girl, sat in the very back of the classroom, her eyes never shifting from their steady, downward glance.

"This young girl never looked up," Danoff recalled, her own eyes widening as her long lashes batted thoughtfully. "One day I told a story called 'The People Could Fly' about the days of slavery and a young African-American woman with a baby who says the magic words and flies away."

"During the story, Felicia looked up for the first time. She then started to do everything [the other students were doing in class] and to write about her own experiences," Danoff explained, her eyes misting slightly at the bittersweet story. She added that when the students later filled out evaluation forms about storytelling, Felicia wrote, "I like storytelling and sometimes I even like myself."

"Stories reach people," Danoff explained with a candor that reflects her faith in what she does. "Storytelling is very non-threatening and allows children to talk about things they care about deeply through metaphor. There's an intimacy established between the storyteller and the listener. It's an act of friendship."