Narrative Stage
Joel and Taylor check on gear before one of the narrative stages.
Photo by Josh Niedwick
At the festival we indexed the conversations, operated audio equipment, visually recorded the stage, took photos, and co-lead the narrative stage conversations.
A view of the narrative stage from the video camera’s perspective.
Photo by Josh Niedwick
Every year the Kentucky Folklife program hosts a narrative stage at the Horse Cave Heritage Festival and is assisted by WKU Folk Studies program graduate students (of which I am currently enrolled.) This is an opportunity to practice several of the field work techniques we have been studying and gain important experience engaging with individuals in various communities.
Maddison Rippy runs audio while I index the conversation on the narrative stage.
Photo by Taylor Burden
Personally, what I found to be an interesting challenge was conducting the narrative stage. While I have had extensive experience conducting interviews, there is a difference in technique and purpose between journalistic styles and more ethnographic ones. Not only learning ethnographic techniques but also utilizing them instead of the more second nature journalistic ones proved to be a more than worth while learning experience for future projects.