#CMCDIARIES

Literary enthusiast, theatre professional, and a facilitator with us, Akshat Nigam recounts his storytelling experience with the TSCMC students.

CHASING YOUR TALE
Notes on a Storytelling Workshop

by Akshat Nigam, facilitator at TSCMC

Storytelling is a powerful and ancient art. Today, we are likely to view ‘Storytelling’ as a ‘fun’ activity for children. In fact, an enduring image of storytelling is the grandmother or grandfather narrating some magical story to fascinated grandchildren. (This image is actually true to my own experiences with my grandmother!)

But this distinction of stories as being ‘for children’ or ‘for adults’ is quite recent. For thousands of years, before the advent of formal learning centres or textbooks, all across cultures that were all struggling with the very real problems of this very same world – how to mark seasons, how to read the weather, where do the animals go in winter, dangers of the forest – stories were a powerful tool for acquiring and storing information.

You see, information is just data to be memorised. You may forget it, you may find it boring, you may miss some details in a step-by-step process. But stories connect bits of information and string them together in the most colourful and engaging ways, allowing you to connect information with feelings, ideas with experiences and theories with examples. As communicators, we would do well to understand the power of stories to introduce our audience to new ideas in a convincing and innovative manner.

At the Storytelling Workshop held at TSCMC, the participants explored storytelling by asking a simple question: what does it mean to be a communicator? What is the importance of standing on that stage, facing an audience and holding forth on a topic only you care about? How do you bring all your energy to focus on creating a bond with your audience through a story, building bridges of communication on which the traffic of ideas may be exchanged?

The activities involved getting rid of one’s inhibitions, learning to use body language and gestures to illustrate a point, modulating one’s voice to avoid monotony, the importance of eye contact – and of course, how to make any act of communication an enjoyable, enriching experience. Soon, the participants took turns telling each other several stories using many techniques, and even tried making up a few stories of their own – just to see what a powerful tool a story can be in everyday life.

Storytelling is a lifelong pursuit. The good news is, there’s millions of stories all over, spread out like stars against the sky, floating in space, waiting to be told. Stories of heroic quests, of princes and queens, of witchcraft and wizardry, of angry gods and wonderful mysterious islands, of the journeys across fantastic landscapes and stormy seas. Stories meant to instruct, or to inspire, or to entertain.

Would you like to tell a story?