Week 3 – Gathering Inspiration from the Foot of a Stage
This week I reflected on an ‘extra-curricular’ event that I have attended outside EFI, and it’s relevance to my final project. Over the winter break, I attended the Stories on the Way: Winter Solstice Stories at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, which was hosted by one of our guest lecturers from World of Story: Janis McKay.
This was an event where eight storytellers retold a story particularly close to them (curated by them from their [literary] travels), from different corners of the globe. This was to capture and convey the atmosphere and essence of the Winter Solstice at the end of the year. Although the storytellers predominantly relied on auditory methods with which to enrapture their audience and convey their story across, there were visual cues utilised throughout the narratives that helped immerse and guide the listeners through the stories.
Throughout the story, the storyteller would use space and their body to create and convey shapes, objects, foods, etc. This pertains to my intended final project, as I intend to create a narrative that can be followed and interpretated through visual cues. Some of the stand out stories were from India, Scandinavia, and the US. I took note, throughout all eight stories, of how – through the lens of an artist’s eye – the storytellers portrayed elements of the story, as well as theme. It was fascinating to see how the tone and motifs of a storyteller’s intended story could be prefaced by their stage presence and control/use of space. As I listened to the stories, I imagined how they might look translated onto paper (physical or digital).
Thus, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and insightful event that I was privileged to attend (at the invitation of a storytelling friend), and that I came away from with several notes in relation to my intended final project. It gave me a new insight and respect into the storytelling genre, and the function and purpose of narrative as a whole.
