Storytelling - An Introduction

What are the basic steps of oral storytelling? This workshop examines how we can give a story its voice back. Storytelling enhances communication and presentational skills, as well as developing imagination and the ability to improvise. No previous experience is necessary for the participation of this course.

The art of traditional storytelling has been existing since the beginning of time and has always been crucial for the development of cultures. Even now, in our modernised world, stories are inseparably linked to our lives. We tell stories every day: both our own and those of other people. Communication is unthinkable without something to tell.

But what is the difference between storytelling as an art form and the every-day-storytelling? How do I make a story come truly alive, be it a personal or a traditional one?

This course investigates the basic steps of oral storytelling and how we can free a story from a book or from a memory - how we can give the story its voice back. The work enhances communication and presentational skills, as well as developing imagination and the ability to improvise.

Traditional stories are the basis for this course, but biographical and improvised material will also be used. We will focus on the playful development of language and look at different means of physical communication. Participants will listen to stories and share experiences in reflexion and discussions.

Contents

• Traditional, biographical and improvised stories
• Performance/Demonstration
• Playful introduction to creative language
• Awareness of body language
• Constructive audience feedback
• Reflexion and discussions

Methods

The workshop consists of exercises such as mnemo- and visualisation techniques, improvisation and retelling. Participants will use storyboarding and story mapping to familiarize themselves and others with the structure of the story. All of the work is based on non-text bound telling.

Participants

The course is open to anyone interested in oral storytelling. No previous experience is required.

Suse Weisse is an award winning storyteller, a director, actress and lecturer, a psychologist and drama teacher. She is frequently invited to international storytelling festivals and has performed at Nordic Voices in Finland, Cape Clear in Ireland, the Scottish Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh, Alden Biesen in Belgium, Beyond the Border in Wales. She has been teaching “Storytelling in Art and Education” in Berlin University of Arts since 2011.  Amongst many other projects she founded an association for storytelling called “ErzählWerk e.V.” in Potsdam which is planning and realising social- cultural storytelling projects like the yearly International Storytelling Festival “verbale!”. She lives and works as a freelancer in Potsdam, Berlin and around the world and is mother of two boys.