Tell Me a Story: a Guide to Traditional Storytelling

Tell Me a Story: a Guide to Traditional Storytelling

Oral storytelling is a lost art that is beginning to revive across the world. Once it was a rich and integral tradition, passed on through families and communities. Stories carried important cultural knowledge and wisdom to be shared down through the generations.

In the space of less than a century, this art has largely disappeared from our communities and families.

• Tell Me a Story will introduce you to the art and craft of developing this ancient skill, using proven story-learning techniques to help you remember the structure and detail of traditional tales.

• The course includes opportunities to reflect on what stops you from telling stories now and to clarify your vision of the kind of storyteller you’d like to become.

• You will be encouraged to explore the deeper meaning (for you) of the stories you select to learn – building a relationship with your story, making it your own and reflecting on its ‘story medicine’ gifts.

In a world now mapped by digital hyper-connectivity, so many of us are disconnected from the natural and human communities that surround us. Renewing the art of storytelling may offer a remedy for reconnection. As we sit by the family fireside, or in forests and by streams, listening to stories told from memory, with gesture and expressive voice, we feel our hearts and minds awaken to ancient ways of relating to each other, to nature and to the sacred.

We begin to remap ourselves and our world into wholeness.

A well-told story is spellbinding: we walk away with fresh insights, challenged by questions or mysteries—our emotions and spirits stirred into new possibilities of becoming.

Toko-pa Turner writes in her book ‘Belonging’: “There is a world behind this world. The old cultures used to be in constant conversation with it through the sacred practices of storytelling, dreaming, ceremony, and song. They invited the Otherworld to visit them, to transmit its wisdom to them, so that they might be guided by an ancient momentum. But as we succumbed to the spell of rationalism, the living bridge between the worlds fell into disrepair. As fewer made the journey ‘back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,’ we forgot how to find the Otherworld.”

Reclaiming your inner storyteller builds a bridge between you and the Otherworld to enable many magical journeys back and forth for years to come.

Who is this course for?

• You are a parent who would like to spend more creative and meaningful time with your children

• You would like more social confidence – new ways of sharing old wisdom with friends

• You would like to reconnect with the magic of your mythic journey and draw inspiration from the old tales

• You are keen to reconnect to your ancestral heritage and lands

• You long to reconnect to Mother Earth by learning nature tales and telling stories outdoors

• You feel you lack the skills or presence to tell a story well

• You think your memory is not good enough to remember a story

• You want to deliver wisdom and insights in a more spacious way that is not didactic or moralising.

During this course, you will…

• Recognise your innate storytelling ability and experience

• Discover many online resources and books for traditional stories

• Practice tried and true story learning and telling skills.

• Gain insight into your life’s journey through traditional tales

• Glimpse the power of story medicine

• Build a relationship with your story to make it your own while retaining its key elements.

• Practice your story in different ways and contexts

• Be introduced to the worldwide storytelling renaissance.

At the end of this course, you will

• Feel more confident in your unique storytelling style

• Trust yourself to improvise your story, rather than trying to remember it word-for-word

• Never be short of ideas or resources for story-finding

• Have begun your own oral story collection

• Understand the importance of building a personal relationship with the stories you tell

• See parallels and symbols in traditional tales that offer solace, encouragement, and inspiration for your life’s journey

• Enjoy being creative and experimenting with how you practice and tell your story.

• See many ways you could contribute to the worldwide storytelling renaissance.

The course is taught by Nicola-Jane le Breton, a creative writing teacher and arts facilitator who runs a storytelling development project and monthly workshops in her home community in Western Australia, together with theatre director Silvia Lehmann.

Enrol now to learn a uniquely insightful and powerful approach to storytelling.

Awaken Your Inner Storyteller With Workshop Proven Techniques

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What you will learn

• Awaken your inner storyteller
• Embrace your own storytelling style
• Overcome inner obstacles to telling stories

Rating: 4.5

Level: All Levels

Duration: 2 hours

Instructor: Paul Jenkins' Course Partners