February

We’ve been going to Storytelling classes since last September, and really do enjoy the experience – and the challenge. Esyllt Harker runs the class. She’s a professional storyteller and she tells stories to children and adults all around Wales.  

Each Monday, she has us looking at storytelling in all sorts of ways. Most classes, she has us up on our feet quickly, to work on our breathing and posture, as well as moving to sound. She gets us singing and chanting to work our voices. When we eventually sit down, she makes us close our eyes and use visualization to increase what we can see clearly in our mind’s eye. 

In the picture on the right, Esyllt is on the far left in the photo, followed by Daisy, Jill, Jim, Liz and Gareth.

Esyllt is tougher than her photo suggests; although slight of figure and fairly quiet of voice, she packs a storytelling punch.

Last term, we worked on landscape, using all sorts of settings in story to either create new stories or emphasize parts of familiar tales. She got us working together, which was great as we didn’t know each other. In one class, we each brought a small item that meant a lot to us, and then paired us off to tell a classmate what this was about...but it was our partner’s story that we had to work on, to create into a story we could tell. We use this sort of ‘exchange’ a lot, in an effort to ‘release’ stories and allow us to feel we have carte blanche over them.

We worked on aspects of storytelling such as how to face an audience and how to pace our stories, both timing it and breaking it into sections, and working on telling parts faster and slower than others. We also worked on detail. My writing friends will know that I think detail is very important in written stories; Esyllt believes that in storytelling it is the five senses that count for the most; listeners can feel the emotions of the story via experiencing tastes and smells textures, pain and pleasure, the tapestry of sounds as well as describing colours and other visual descriptions.

One thing I really enjoyed as a writer, was Esyllt’s ‘storytelling packs’, which  contained random aspects of building a story. We’ve used these twice so far, once with a partner and once alone. I found it amazing, as someone who spends a fair time trying to create stories, just how simple this exercise was, and how a story fell into place each time.

This term we’re looking at the different sorts of storytelling; we’ve looked at myth, fable and fairy tales so far. Last week we went on a physical journey around the village hall we met in, and on the journey, met a ‘stranger’ who gave us a gift, which altered the story considerably. 

After the class was over, we went back to Jill’s where Jim had his Tarot told; Jill is an authority on Therapeutic Tarot. Then we took her down her local for a meal.