Hello everybody!
My name is Jitka Oláh and I am in the third year of my doctoral project, based here in Brno. The
topic of my research is oral storytelling and its value and possibilities for Drama and Education.
As a doctoral student I spent the whole last academic year in Welsh Glamorgan University, in the
George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling - and during this time I was trying to see, meet and talk
to as much storytellers as I could. They were telling their stories not only on the stage, but in the
classrooms, libraries, museums, art centre, in cafes, in contest etc. The diversity of the phenomena
storyteller seemed to me huge - from 10 years old pupil telling the story to the 7 year old fellow to
the professional performer telling the long welsh epos for a few hours. I am happy I had this
possibility to investigate the local shapes of storytelling movement in its home environment as in
UK is this movement active since 60s and contemporary storytelling scene is indeed influenced by
this development happening in time. In Czech we can not talk about storytelling revival whose
beginnings could be seen in US and in Europe in late 60s and early 70s - in times of contra-culture.
But form the very beginning: storytelling is a way of very common communication, its a way of
transmitting the information, a way of self-presentig and a way of creating meanings. Storytelling is
happening if somebody is orally telling a story to somebody else while the storyteller is organising
principle of this communication - his role is naturally respected by spectator/s. The ostentative
character of sharing a story (caused by its oral nature happening only now and here), distinct
borders between storyteller and audience causes a performative/theatrical aspect of storytelling. 1
Next to performance storytelling exists an applied storytelling - in some points these two streams
exist next to each other and influence each other. Especially in the second half of the 20th century.
In applied storytelling is telling the story primarily considered as a creative tool / method enabling
to the pedagogue / facilitator working with a group to influence, form or develop some participant’s
skills and abilities. This method is called in English context applied storytelling and is used in
different fields with different purposes - education, therapy, healing, improving communication
skills in business etc. An educational approach to storytelling seems to me as an essential for
applied storytelling. In the centre there is a persuasion that sharing a story by telling it is very
natural and human closed way of passing the information in very understandable way. There is also
a strong belief that story structure can help to structure our own experiences in order to understand
them which might be a very creative, relaxing and helping process.
1
Spalding Gray‘s autobiographical stories from 80s1 are called by some performative art but by
others also a performance storytelling. This double terminology refers at least to the same cultural
and social origins of performance art and performace storytelling.
I am trying to prove in my research that storytelling activities with a group can effectively work as a
creative tool supporting development of telling and listening abilities, sense for community, critical
thinking, literacy and can help to formulate ourselves. Of course there is a great amount of other
aspects influencing mentioned abilities and skills which shall be impeached. It’s obvious that
storyteller can’t “produce” a great readers, amazingly thinking personalities but I guess that
narrativity - the ability to tell a story - is as a language ability possible to be trained, improved and
can help with finding a way to understand meanings of spoken word, written text and its aesthetics.
My doctoral paper is greatly inspired by my need to explore what is happening when somebody is
telling a story - what is happening when somebody is trying to transfer the story from outside into
his/her inside to be able to tell it as her/his story - as an author. After my initial theoretical and
practical research I realised that especially this creative process of authorship is for me the most
important aspect of storytelling - not only in performance storytelling but in applied storytelling as
well. So that I decided to examine this complex aspect in my paper as well as in my practical
project.
Well, what can you expect then in these 20 minutes? I would like to point out some theoretical
resources I was using for understanding the narrative issue in generally. Then I would like to share
the methodology of my work with the group of students here at faculty and at the end of my speech
I would be happy to hear your questions and comments which is probably the most important part
of my today performance as the aim of this speech is not to bring final and unchangeable
conclusions but rather to provoke questions and fan the fire of debate about using storytelling.
It was very quick process a few years ago when I realised that I am attracted by storytelling when I
met a storyteller working in educational field. It has happened in a very short time. Unfortunately
more time then took me to explore why this very common and rather ordinary/simplified way of
theatre communication works so well - not only in educational context but also on the stage.
If you are interested in similar topics I am sure you have certainly come into touch with some
literature focusing on narratives, narratology, narrative thinking, meanings of stories, narrative
construction of identities, narrative self-receptions etc. Sometimes you might even feel that there is
almost nothing but narrative and nothing but narratively structured. In this moment you are
certainly under powerful regime of narrative imperialism floating over a lot of research fields. This
enthusiasm about narrative metaphor in human sciences is presenting changing attitudes to a way
how to examine a human behaviour and thinking and in last decades has been spread from
narratology to many other fields of human science. These tendencies started to be formed since 60s
into a remarkable interdisciplinary research field. This stream of narrative thinking is quite coherent
as there are some important texts creating sort of canon - Paul Riceaur, Jerome Brunner, Hardy etc...
At the very beginning of my research I had to face very basic questions The one came to me
regularly: “Why do we need stories?”
After examining different approaches of narratology, cognitive sciences, narrative psychology and
sociology I supposed that never-ending need to explore the world with story and in the story is
deduced from the narrative character of our cognition, noesis and experience. We are using story as
a tool to structure the fabrics of life into a understandable pattern = narrative structure and this can
be seen as a reason why the story could not just simply vanish out from our culture, form our lives,
from our thinking strategies. The story gives to the lived life its specific meaning and in the same
time of its formulation is also already calling for another, new, actual reinterpretation. From this
point of view the story could be seen as kind of “safety valve” for “draining” and modelling the
actual interpretation of our life experience. The story is based on life but the life isn’t determined by
the story. For this reason is important to understand its value - especially for children and for young
people growing up surrounded by stories. But I guess the story accompany our lives though we are
grown up and become “socially defined” with a certain social role. I guess that especially
understanding our lives like stories give us the possibility to interpret and re-interpret what gives to
our lives deeper meanings for the story is every-time open to be continued. So in order to
understand ourselves and world around we need stories (meant in different possible forms - not only
orally told) till the end of our lives. What’s another important fact is that we can very easily share
our life experiences (in its wide meaning) via story, we can effectively communicate with other
people via story, we can reassure our selves about the community we live in via story, we can
search for our own voice / personal views / attitudes / our way how to communicate via story. The
story gives meaning to our lives but in the same time opens the door to other fictive worlds. The
experience is becoming an appeal to take part in the imaginative understanding the reality - in
different words: to understand the reality as an idea / picture / vision which is structured narratively.
Stories shall be told or differently shared because they are part of narrative character our lives.
As I understand the Drama in Education as a way to learn by experience - that means by direct
personal cognition of social relations and by actions / processes overlapping individual’s actual and
real practise we shall feel the value of the story within Drama in Education context as way of
creative structuring an experience. The experience comes from safe environment of fiction which is
in this case created narratively.
“How can we use the story?” This question initiates some taught about how to apply mentioned
values of stories and storytelling into the practise. As I am mainly focusing on applied storytelling
this question seemed to me rather more important than “How to tell the story?”. After a few
practical experiences I realised that there is no differences between those two questions as the first
implies the second one and the quality opens possibilities for its use. Analysing the story very
naturally leads to searching and exploring personal storytelling style as the storyteller is performer,
dramaturg and director all in one. Thinking about the story implies thinking about how to tell the
story, how to share it, with whom to share it and who am I while telling the story. What the story
means for me implies how can I immediate these meanings to my listeners, to my audience. In this
mutual process rise conditions for creating an original personal author view. Interpretation of the
certain story is happening currently in conceptual and performing lines.
Very important part of this process is exploring the role of myself as a storyteller. There is just one
main character in told story - the storyteller - who is projected into all characters as s/he is creating
them, giving them their shapes and characteristics and is also commenting them. hiking about
metaphor and meaning of the story go hand in hand with its performance aesthetics. This requires to
think about using language, voice modulation, expressions, gestures, mimicking, movements, body,
contact with audience, rhythm, eventually using instruments, songs, cooperate with musicians, other
storytellers etc.
At the beginning there is just a material / fabric / written story (if the story isn’t devised by
storyteller). If this story shall be animated by telling it there must be a storyteller through whom the
story will be transmitted to the audience. Lot of storytellers call them selves as messengers, guides,
ambassadors of the story.
What is quite interesting aspect of storytelling is the chance to share the story in a group, listening
to the orally told story isn’t so individual and sort of passive act like f. e. watching the movie or
reading the text. This common experience might be the key for community sense development - I
have realised that in a some long term school storytelling projects I came across2 - very important
factor of its success was in each case (next to others) the appreciation of the time children spent
with storyteller/s. In other words the role of storyteller rather the way of delivery is more important
and more influential that the story itself.
2
Sprachloss!? Berlin, Kirten Wardetzky, Robin Melo - US, Richard Berry - Moorland School,
Caridff.
The role of storyteller as a mediator of the story (using naratology terms we can say that narrator is
a narrative strategy) is essential. The fiction world exists only as a result of narrator’s activity,
narrator is main modus of organisation. Any amazingly written story can’t save a bad storyteller
whilst a good storyteller might be able to capture his/her audience with any kind of story.
Author of the text is while his story is told by storyteller subdued and blend with the dominant
figure of the alive storyteller. The storyteller3 means for me the way of thinking about the story
from a very specific author’s view. An original text’s author could be vividly presented in the story
but only in comments by the storyteller. While storyteller is telling the story the author of the text is
invisible.
The storyteller isn’t usually part of the told story as a character (not in case life story), but is in a
way TÉMATIZOVÁN in the whole story. This could be seen e.g. in sort of pre-story (often told)
before the story itself or in a way distributing facts and elements of the story which is told, or in
addressing listeners and of course in comments. This TÉMATIZACE might be way of creating the
narrative style - narrative perspective.
Usually is storyteller acting as a omniscient narrator - s/he is showing us the world of the story,
there are no white spots in this created purposely. We can go even further in applying narratology
categories on oral storytelling - according to Percy Lubbock4’s understanding of point of view in
narrative by using polarity of mimesis and diegesis. In the first case the storyteller might vanish and
the listener / spectator can have a feeling that the fiction is a part of his / her reality - the principle of
mimesis is in this case strongly enforcement. There can be also contrary situation that the principle
of diegesis is pushed forward - this is happening when the storyteller is visible guide of the story.
In both cases It’s very ostentaive way of communication the story with very quick, visible and
naturally spontaneous responses and reactions of the audience. The storyteller can’t simply avoid
this a little bit “dangerous” character of oral telling which is happening now and here between him/
her and the audience, which is essential. Storyteller can’t physically vanish from the stage, can’t
lose eye contact, can’t only act - the storyteller shall create the vision not in the stage but directly in
spectator’s head.
3
So than I have to declare that I do not understand the meaning of the word storyteller as a trendy
label or title which can be simply add to somebody’s business card bellow his/her name to be able
to do good business.
4
viz Tomáš Kubíček, Vypravěč, Kategorie narativní analýzy, Brno: HOST 2007, s. 47 - 49.
My practical project is based on my work with a group of students from Drama and Education
Department. This pedagogical experience helps me to prove the methodology I have chosen
because practical outcomes are the most important for me. In this very moment I can not bring final
conclusions of my practical research as the work is still in progress but I would like to share with
you my way of teaching storytelling a group of drama teachers who are on their storytelling
journey. Next to exploring aesthetics of oral storytelling they work on their own story to be
prepared to tell it at end of the term. I encouraged them not to hesitate to chose any traditional fairytale though it might seem to be bit boring, too simplified, literary not so well crafted and full of
questions. This kind of narrativ is easier for telling as its already involves oral character in and it’s
structure is rather simple. Thanks to this was the fairytale examined by Russian formalist Vladimir
Propp and categorised into a general categories of hero type, helper type etc. Later on narratologist
(f. e. Seymour Chatman) pointed out that this categorisation can not be used for understanding to
more complex narratives. But those students work or will work mainly with children and young
people so that I wanted them to examine the quality of the fairy-tale - the closest narrativ to the
target age group of their work.
There are a few steps in our work we would like to reach this term which will be completed with
two public storytelling evenings in a cosy cafe. This is more an experiment with informal space but
I suppose that the very first storytelling experience just in informal space might help them to be
aware of the freedom and necessity to create their own space while telling a story and I wanted
them to be closer to audience. I was afraid of that in classical theatre space they might fell bound by
its space arrangement. Maybe I was also influenced by this decision by the idea of storytelling cafes
which I met I UK5.
I wanted students to finish the journey of absorbing the story form outside into their inside with the
public storytelling event because the most important part of this creative process is happening just
when the storyteller is telling it with live ammunition in certain situation for certain audience, in a
certain atmosphere and in his/her certain mood... etc - in other words the story is getting its shape
while the storyteller is telling it to the audience / creating the story for the certain circumstances. As
s/he is the only one performer all in one standing “solo” in front of the people telling the story so
that the storyteller shall be absolutely certain about meanings of the story for themselves to be able
to communicate them. There is nothing to hide behind - every empty phrase, cliché or any
FLOSKULE will reveal splitting from the story, the communication will be disturbed, the pictures
will stop to be displayed in a spectator’s mind...
5
GRAHAM LANGLEY’s storytelling cafes.
Recently we are working on these steps:
1. the first step is to get know the skeleton of the story - facts about story, what has happened
2. then it’s important to visualise the story - creating own pictures, add own sensations
3. analysing the story - what does it mean? this leads to concretisation of meanings
4. analysing the topic and searching for an interpretation, metaphor, creating the point of view,
what does it mean to me? - creating the concept.
5. animate still pictures - searching for movements and gestures of certain characters
6. personal associations - experience of situation
7. exploring the way of telling certain story - Why am I going to tell the story? How shall I tell it?
8. the last step - giving the shape to the story by telling it
In the second term they shall be able to tell a story to a group of children and work with a story after
it’s told. This is what I called creative storytelling - the method originates in the idea that there is a
huge creative potential in the group after the story is told and might be used for transforming it into
an activities developing the effect of orally told story.
I guess time is gone for the moment. As I have mentioned at the beginning of my paper that I would
be happy to hear your comments and questions.
I am mainly interested in:
- What’s happening with the space while storyteller is telling a story?
- Is storyteller’s relationship to the audience the essential difference form acting?
- What role play intimacy and feel of togetherness?