Storytelling Workshop

Thanks to Ujwala for giving us a window onto The Forum's recent Storytelling workshop.  Sounds like a really fun day!  Did you participate?  Please post a comment about your own experience. 

The 26th of October was the day of tall tales at Café Nova as part of our Cultural Friday festivities.  There was a buzz in the air and lots of laughter to come as we occupied a cosy niche and spoke about Storytelling and how it is important to all of us over tea and sandwiches. 

We also had two activities to get the creative juices flowing.  Participants were encouraged to draw inspiration from commonplace words like sing, dance, river etc. to tell a story.  Stories ranged from made-up fantasies which caused much mirth, to nostalgic reminiscences and folktales from distant lands. 

The other activity we had was to ‘make a story out of nothing’ where the participants drew something and each of the others added their interpretations or additions to the story.  This led to many interesting and sometimes very funny ideas.  A pizzeria was brought to life complete with impatient customers, a fiery oven and a cheeky mouse.  The yellow line in Birmingham train station reminded us to ‘Mind the Gap’. 

Finally we spoke about how storytelling can be useful in our everyday lives.  We discussed its entertainment value, storytelling in advertisements, and using it as a tool to share our personal stories.  We were all very sad to stop!