Saturday 26 December 2009

Contemporary Storytelling Course


I have been away from the blog for quite a while but not wawy from storytelling. I have taken a full time job and this inevitably impinges on the time I can spend writing and learning about storytelling, however, my love for storytelling has not decreased. I have continued taking workshops here and there. More importantly I have started telling stories to adults within the context of the Storytelling Cafe which meets every month at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. I am slowly working on my repertoire and with this in mind, I decided to enrol in the Contemporary Storytelling Course given at Newbattle Abbey College.

Formal and Informal Learning.
I found the experience really invigorating. The weekend from the 25-27 September was run by Donald Smith and Bea Ferguson. The weekend gave us an opportunity to work in groups having the advice and feedback of both tutors and this was invaluable.

I met and worked with people who specialise in ghost stories running storytelling tours in the dark streets and alley-ways of Edinburgh; people who specialise in stories from The Orkney Islands; people who specialise in writing and telling stories with a religious context. There were also academics from abroad using stories as a teaching aid to teach and learn English as a foreign language. There were early years teachers and people who work with young people in a variety of challenging environments. I was able to compare ways of working with children, particularly some of the techniques that I honed in within the DigiStory Club. All in all, I realised how fantastically varied are the applications of storytelling.

The first weekend was stuctured as a workshop in the morning, with opportunities for groupwork and feedback time. Afternoons gave further opportunities to work on specific stories. The second day we worked more in fleshing out individual projects either based on the work done in the previous day, or our own personal project. I worked on a project about bringing together the stories embedded within scientific discoveries with the magic of storytelling. This project is fleshing itself more and more and I will be able to share more of this as the project develops further.

The final day was for actual performance with group feedback and later on, individual feedback by the tutors. I was able to present a story based on mythology from the region of Oaxaca in Mexico. I had already told this story at the Storytelling Cafe in Edinburgh, but through the work at the workshop I was able to develop it to a much finer point, taking in side characters and descriptions that helped the audience understand the context of the story. All in all very satisfying.

What did I learned?
My repertoire of stories was enlarged. I explored different methodologies with which to study the core of each story. I became aware of the very wide applications that storytelling has. I saw the importance of freeing my body and my voice in order to make the story a more "lived-in" experience. I am working on a project that works with science narratives and storytelling. I made friends and established working partnerships with a number of people and I had 2 glorious evenings of endless storytelling.

However, for me the most important thing was the close cooperation and feedback from fellow storytellers. It was wonderful to meet up and get to work on projects with people who have woven storytelling within their professional activities. Every evening we met by the huge fireplace in the medieval part of the college and told stories. This was a fantastic learning experience for me. The feedback, advice and encouragement I got from my colleagues was invaluable. So, after the first part of the course, I am back with renewed energy for more writing about storytelling.

TwitThis

No comments:

Post a Comment