Today huge steam punk conventions are
held around the globe and comic book conventions (comic-cons)once home solely
to superheroes and Jedi Knights, now sees as many stream punk characters
strolling the promenades as any of the other personas.
A mixture of role play (costume or
cos-play) based on a character of your own creation, an opportunity to dress up in fine
Victorian-Edwardian costumes, a place to meet others who enjoy tinkering with
contraptions, drinking tea, exploring imaginative alternate worlds and histories,
the current steam punk movement is arriving in Oklahoma.
From my research, storytelling has not
made serious or widespread inroads into the movement. Samples of performances labeled as
storytelling found online indicate there is room for experienced storytellers
to share their talents in story crafting and sharing into this new
reality.
Although attracting membership from the
late 20’s and older, the movement includes many a seasoned individual. So steam punk may be a way to interest youth
tellers it can also be a way for other tellers to expand their telling
repertoire and audience. How, though, to
cross over into this world?
1) Understand the role of such movements
as a response to the overly technical, specialized, non-personal, polarizing,
and fragmenting aspects of modern society.
As with all millennial and quasi-millennial movements there is a
underlying sense of “somewhere we went wrong”.
Steam punk explores the communal act of
finding the soul in the middle of the real, sterile, and isolated world.
2) Understand the guiding themes of
steam punk as a retro-futuristic exploration of another world peopled by
humans, metal robots, steam powered technologies replicating modern ones (what
if the atom had NOT been discovered to change the course of science?).
3) Understand the great diversity of the
movement that allows cultures to pick and choose the best of each and integrate
them in creative and peaceful ways.
Costumes may include elements of the kilt, the Victorian explorer pith
helmet and a Middle eastern turban or a woman’s walking dress may be shorter,
with near mandatory Victorian boots, a corset or cincher worn over the clothes
on the outside, and a pair of brass goggles.
4) Understand the movement as providing
an opportunity to write an alternate history that sees nations flowering, which
might have been cut down in their prime or see issues resolved which were
ignored in the real time line. For
example, the role of women is often greatly expanded in stream punk to include
activities, behaviors, and values denied them in the real gendered Victorian
Era.
5) Recognize the literature sources
which have influenced the movement:
these include the classic tales of Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan
Poe, Lovecraft, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and others. Turn
of the century newspapers and dime novels.
6) View the Movies which have had a
touch or broad stroke of steam punk: Wild, Wild West; League of extraordinary
Gentleman; The Time Machine; Howl's Moving Castle; Sky Captain and the World of
Tomorrow; Sherlock Holmes (2009):9; Sleepy Hollow; Hellboy; Van Helsing; 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea; The Prestige; The Golden Compass; The Brothers
Grimm. On television, Warehouse 13 and
Dr. Who have occasionally reflected the culture.
7) Become familiar with necessary
performance Values:
Costume: period or cultural pieces, perhaps
juxtaposed with unique or arcane 'gadgets'.
Standard props for both sexes can include: brass or metal/leather
goggles, vests, hats, boots, leather/canvas bags, canes, umbrellas/parasols,
etc.
Props can be useful but should be used
only with much practice: the umbrella, the cane, the ladies hand bag (a
drawstring affair), a "ray gun", or apparatus, etc. can be very
dangerous!
Costuming for women may include some
standard props:
Victorian gown
Corset (worn outside the clothing)
(See illustrations later)
Language: Spiced with the formal language of the
Victorian era, delivered in a more precise manner, and utilizing larger more
diverse vocabulary. Too heavy an accent
will be defeating to the ease of the audience to actually understand your
story. Too modern a style or vocabulary
will negate the suspension of reality required to place the story and the
teller in an alternate reality.
Biases:
Some of the biases may
include presuming audience has a wider knowledge of the literature, history,
time, or customs of the time period.
Another bias can be too narrow an understanding of steam punk as English,
European, etc. Steam punk is a global
movement which easily adapts and meshes diverse styles and cultures in the new
reality of the steam punk world.
Transition: Current storytellers can ease into
steam punk if they have told stories of the old west, of history, of
adventurers, of travel, of invention and discovery or human interest
tales. Classic myths and legends can
have their essence 're-cast' in a new suit of steam punk - if the teller firmly
understands the nuances, diversity, and
motivations found in steam punk.
8) Be aware of the ongoing evolution of
the movement and these sub-categories of steam punk as a starting place:
BoilerPunk
-blue-collar industrial age workers; opposite to aristocratic steampunk;
ClockPunk-
emphasizing the technologies that augment and replace steam;
DieselPunk
- A "heresy" where diesel fuel and nuclear power take the place of
steam;
GaslightRomance
- A British term; American steam punk is considered by some to actually be
Gaslight romance or fantasy;
MannersPunk
- Broader category of stories and works which may or may not be steampunk but
which focus on hierarchy in society, some emergent technologies, and involve
parties, mansions, and the more formal and civilized aspects of society;
RaygunGothic
- A more sci-fiction approach with broad application; could also be called
Raygun Melodrama;
StitchPunk
- A reflection of the crafts, hands-on, inventing, tinkering, and
do-it-yourself elements in steam punk. ---The SteamPunk Bible (2011), pg. 54-55.
For the storyteller, the challenge will be to determine could they
share a Lovecraftian story of the macabre, or a take on Sherlock Holmes (maybe
from Mrs. Hudson’s view? or the cabbie who drove them here and there?). Perhaps
share also an original tale incorporating some of the archetypes or motifs of
the genre: the goggles, the clockworks, the clanking robotic men powered by
steam or clocks, etc.
For the storytelling selection choices
include select retellings of Gulliver’s Travels, The Golem, the travels of Burton
or Livingston, the early Victorian women explorers, the early flyers (plane and
balloon). These and others provide a rich resource to be discovered and given a
fun little twist to fashion a creatively refreshing tale for steam punk
audiences.
Part 1 of a teaching series by Marilyn A. Hudson
