FEEDBACK FROM A STORYTELLING WORKSHOP

By Betty Bennett

In late February, I attended a storytelling workshop in Kitchener-Waterloo with one of the other Peterborough storytellers.  The workshop was led by Gail Fricker, in partnership with the Baden Storytellers Guild.  It was an excellent workshop with a great deal of useful information and skill-building presented in a well-planned format.

 

Gail came to storytelling from a theatrical background, and went on to pursue a Master’s degree in storytelling arts, so her perspective is very interesting and insightful, especially on the interface between acting and storytelling.

  

The morning started with a brief mixer exercise, and then Gail told the story of “The Lion’s Three Whiskers” in the first person, using gesture, song, and a suggestion of accent to set the scene and establish the narrative character.  When she finished, there was discussion about what we had observed and about the point at which storytelling slips across the line into theatre.

 

Before the break, Gail told fragments of two other stories, again in the first person.   Once more, she used a specific gesture to help set the story in its context – not too much, and not too little.  She also discussed the use of props and how to avoid stepping over the line from storytelling into theatre when using them.

After the break, we divided into groups of two or three to work on the beginning of a story that we had brought with us, the idea being that we would transpose it into the first person from the third to make it more immediate.  Of course, we had already absorbed several useful lessons from Gail, but the learning didn’t stop there.

I found it very helpful to have input from other storytellers who had never heard me tell before.  When we meet in our own local group, we become accustomed to each others’ style of telling, and sometimes we overlook subtle ways in which we could make our storytelling even better.

 

It was also very interesting to hear the types of stories being shaped and shared.  One teller was working on an oral narrative to commemorate a significant anniversary of her church.  Another was developing an oral storytelling performance around several events in local history.  The specific story was about the demise of the local cinema/ playhouse from the perspective of the last owners.  A third teller was shifting the perspective of a Welsh legend from the third to the first person in preparation for World Storytelling Day.  I learned almost as much from the other workshop participants, as I did from Gail.  It was a most worthwhile morning.

 

In the last half hour of the workshop, we re-gathered and some of us told the beginning of the story we were working on.  Again, the feedback was very helpful.  For instance, I learned that too many gestures can be quite distracting, while no gestures at all can flatten the telling.  As a chronic hand-flapper, I found that insight very useful – make the gesture serve a purpose.

On the morning of June 7, 2014, the Peterborough Storytellers will be hosting our first storytelling workshop, Our History is in Our Stories with guest facilitator, Jim Blake from nearby Haliburton, Ontario.

Jim writes, “One of the best ways to make history come alive is through the telling of stories. We can list facts, rhyme off dates, look at artefacts and identify the locations where things happened; but it is the stories about the people and the events that really capture our interest. Since we usually don’t have a record of what people said or what they were thinking it takes a creative mind to make these stories come alive.”

Jim continues. “This workshop focuses on how we can use bits and pieces from the past and, with some research and imagination, turn them into compelling stories about our local history. Sometimes these stories are best told in the first person and other times in the third person. We will also look at these and other aspects of historically-based storytelling.”

The interesting thing to me is that many of the skills involved in telling local history apply just as much to telling personal stories and family history.  And once again, shifting the point of view can make a well-known folktale or fairy tale, fresh and newly-engaging. 

What I have learned from the workshops that I have attended is that there is always something new to learn, and often a different direction to take the skills already acquired, and, of course, there is no substitute for exchanging ideas with other storytellers.

You can contact Betty at peterboroughstorytellers@cogeco.ca