storytelling

In my element

Last night when I was telling stories onstage, my husband captured this perfect ‘getting the precise details’ gesture of mine. I recognized how it feels from how it looks.

A blue-tinged photo of me telling a story onstage at a storytelling festival.
A blue-tinged photo of me telling a story onstage at a storytelling festival. The back of several people’s heads can be seen at the bottom of the photo. I’m a middle-aged woman with short brown hair wearing a blue tunic, I have my right hand outstretched with the palm downward and my left hand has one finger outstretched in the ‘let me tell you one thing’ gesture.

Today, I’m telling stories

A photo of a large white building that houses a museum. Trees, grass and flowers are in the foreground.
A photo of Torbay History House – a museum and activity centre for community heritage activities. The white two story building with a roofed, wrap-around porch is in the back of the photo with an expanse of green lawn, flowerbeds, and trees.

I was lucky to be invited to tell stories at Torbay History House today – two 45 minute sets of animal stories for kids.

Since I knew that my audience would be very young, I decided to intersperse my stories with some action songs and it has worked out marvellously – the kids and their grown-ups had a great time. And so did I!

Well, we did in the first set anyway, I’m just heading in for my second set now.

Pieces of a story

On Friday, I took a really fun workshop on creating stories.

The workshop leader, N, had a huge pile of small items in a box and after putting us in pairs he asked us to select a few items to craft a story from.

My story-partner J and I were really on the same metaphorical page and we had a great time crafting our story.

What kind of story could you make from these objects?

a brown tabletop with a green notebook and a pencil on it. On top of the notebook is a metal stick figure with its hands in the air. Next to the notebook is an amber coloured phial, a little ways to the right is a small bouquet of tiny flowers and a metal key, to the right of that is a large rock and to the right of that is a broken white brooch
Image description: a brown tabletop with a green notebook and a pencil on it. On top of the notebook is a metal stick figure with its hands in the air. Next to the notebook is an amber coloured phial, a little ways to the right is a small bouquet of tiny flowers and a metal key, to the right of that is a large rock and to the right of that is a broken white brooch.