Story-based Strategy Advanced Training: A Space for Rest, Radical
As we prepare for this year's Story-based Strategy Advanced Training (SBS AT), we tap into our teachers and ancestors. A great teacher and friend, Gopal Dayaneni, has shared that “stories are told, narratives are lived.” Gopal also talks about the scale of crises and interventions, and I’ve learned from him that the scale of our interventions may not have to be as big as the crises we are in—and this reminds me that Grace Lee Boggs once said “Movements are born of critical connections rather than critical mass.”
Framing activity at the SBS AT 2024
Storytelling and narrative are about relationships—how we come to make meaning of the power we hold collectively and the visions we weave when we are in the right relationships to each other and the land. In other words, how we walk and how we love. That is why at the SBS AT, we practice tools and build relationships that weave our movements and visions together.
Above all, the SBS AT is where we keep building and transforming narrative power. It brings me so much joy to think of the many organizers, strategists, and culture-shifters (including myself in 2015!) who’ve left this space with sweet visions, ideas for bolder actions, deepened practice, and the readiness to bring SBS tools and dreams to their movements. One SBS AT Alumni we would love to highlight today is one of our practitioner-trainers and friend, Keenan, who continues to show his magic using SBS tools. Here is an interview we did with Keenan at the SBS AT 2024:
Thank you for the amazing facilitation you've been doing at our trainings. Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Keenan Rhodes. I'm a filmmaker, photographer, and storyteller. I got to be a facilitator for the SBS AT through my relationship with CSS from being a fellow with CJA, where I received the Introduction to SBS Training as a CJA fellow. I got connected with the good folks at CSS, and just through continued participation, it has led to this moment.
How has SBS been useful in your own life and work?
I feel like in everything that I do regarding storytelling as a filmmaker and as a photographer, I'm using SBS all the time. I use helpful tools like the Drama Triangle, where we talk about the cast of characters like the good, the bad, and the impacted. As a community-based storyteller, I often try to focus and re-center the community, not just as impacted, but also as the heroes and controllers of their own narratives.
Could you share your highlights from the SBS AT 2024?
I gotta say the Campaign Labs and the skits. Shout out to the Californians for Justice and the Jeopardy game that they did. But, the group that I got to co-facilitate with Rae, the NDN Collective, put together a dope skit to be able to challenge mining going on in the Black Hills. To see their creativity, to see them grasp the tools like so well and so quickly, and to be able to put something together like very creative in such a short amount of time is just a priceless experience. Another highlight for me as a trainer was to see the immediate impact and reception to the tools and how folks were able to implement them really quickly.
How does it feel facilitating your first SBS AT training?
Keenan facilitating at the SBS AT 2024
It was a wonderful experience. For me, it’s a very big achievement for my own personal growth as a storyteller because now I feel confident in the fact that I'm able to help not just facilitate these tools but also coach people on how to use the tools in their own work, in their own field. So eternally grateful for the opportunity. I am very blessed to be here and to be working with a wonderful group of people who are dedicated to the same vision of using these tools to build a brighter future in which we can all live in.