Dolphin shows used to be nature lectures and factoids punctuated with animal tricks.  Now they are full scale musical productions complete with a narrative story.  Instead of focusing on teaching facts on dolphins and birds, Sea World took a page from the astounding performances of Cirque-du-Soleil and told a story of a young girl who dreamed of meeting the god of the Dolphins and the goddess of the Skies.

No longer are the people in the show merely trainers – but gods and goddesses.  The performance takes a life of its own as the sea god and his cohort would ride the dolphins and flip in the air with them.  The dancing sky goddess and her birds would swoop from the skies touching the ocean surface while birds of paradise were released to fly over and around the dazzled crowd.  To punctuate the performance and bringing the show to its climax where the sea and sky meet in a singular dance would be a pulse-pounding musical number that resonated the entire theatre.  But what brings the whole performance together as a whole is the dreaming girl and her story.

Stories give people purpose and meaning.  It helps people make sense of their lives in an otherwise chaotic and meaningless world.  In a study conducted on children as young as two, it was found that children as young as two formulate and understand their world mostly through narratives and stories.  These studies were condensed into a volume called “Narratives from the Crib” and it shows a surprising amount of comprehension and understanding of the world through the stories a child who would tell herself before falling asleep.

Many of the rides and shows I’ve been seeing have been altered or changed so that they become part of a larger story.  For instance, to revitalize the “Enchanted Tiki Room” in the Magic Kingdom, the animatronic birds were given new life by infusing two characters into the song: Iago (the parrot from Aladdin) and Zazu (the bird from the Lion King.)  By adding these two characters into the performance, the “Enchanted Tiki Room” becomes part of two larger stories rather than an exhibit that doesn’t mean anything by itself.

Even through adulthood, we also are inexplicably drawn to the power of stories.  We spend billions of dollars on watching TV shows and movies.  It is an unquenchable thirst for meaning that fuels this desire for stories.  And, given the opportunity, people want to be part of the story – part of history.  That is part of the reason so many people are drawn to celebrities.

You may agree or disagree with this person.  But you cannot deny the power of his life story.