Storytelling In the News III

New From Afar
Alfred Stevens, 1860's

In February of 2021 I was asked to take over the Storytelling It’s News column for the National Storytelling Network's newsletter. Below are some of the articles I researched through the year. Since there are so many, I broke it up into three posts, this is the third and final one from 2021. You will find a link to the previous two blogs in the series at the end of this post.

I hope you find something interesting to read, and perhaps some new tidbits to add to your storytelling and presentations.

Teaching Us Wonder: Turkey embarks on cultural mission to preserve its folktales
“The oral folktales of the Anatolian plateau are a remarkable blend of storytelling motifs and traditions…” Now, an academic project is collecting and indexing stories for future generations.
https://tinyurl.com/2p9avcua

Telling Stories of Slavery, One Person at a Time
The new exhibition in Amsterdam reconstructs the personal history to counter the wider and less discussed involvement of the Netherlands in the international trade of slave people during the colonial era.
https://tinyurl.com/yyzstdpr

The woman who coined the term 'fairy tale' risked prison to write coded messages of rebellion
“Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy — who'd been married off at 15 to an abusive man three decades her elder — slipped messages of resistance into her popular stories, risking jail in the process. D'Aulnoy lived in a punishing patriarchy: women couldn't work or inherit money and were forbidden from marrying for love. Through her work, she showed an alternative. "She subversively wrote against some of the cultural norms for women at the time…”
https://tinyurl.com/yfvrc7c4

This Hans Christian Anderson Museum Asks You to Step Into a Fairy Tale
“It’s not a historical museum,” Henrik Lübker, the museum’s creative director says, “It’s more an existential museum.” The museum is designed “to echo the sensibility of a fairy tale writer who rarely offered his audience simple lessons.” When complete the building will include 60,000 square feet and the gardens will be an additional 75,000 square feet. There will be labyrinthine hedges and wooden pavilions that will merge nature and architecture. “It’s kind of like a universe where nothing is quite as it seems,” Lübker says. “Everything you thought you knew can be experienced anew.”
https://tinyurl.com/2p86ftr4

UK Researcher gives Arunachal Pradesh's folk tales an animation push
“The 'Stories of our Ancestors' is a project of the North Eastern Hill University based in Shillong, Meghalaya to research and document the oral storytelling traditions of the Wancho of Arunachal Pradesh and the Tangkhul community of Manipur… 'Stories of Our Ancestors' that seeks to document, preserve and present before the world outside through animation, a strong form of visual media.”
https://tinyurl.com/fek6pk7c

Vancouver Chinatown Storytelling Centre shines light on Chinese Canadian legacies 
“What did Vancouver’s Chinatown look like during its heyday? What was everyday life like for early Chinese Canadians? What contributions did previous generations of Chinese immigrants make to Canadian society, and are their legacies still apparent to this day?... With the opening of the Chinatown Storytelling Centre (CSC) at 168 East Pender Street in the core of Chinatown this weekend, there is now a permanent home to preserve and share these stories.”
https://tinyurl.com/2p86du3a

Walking storyteller begins historic trek through China’s heartland
“For more than eight years, I have trailed the first human beings who roamed out of Africa during the Stone Age…I will traverse at least 10 of its provinces. I will inch from the subtropical forests of Myanmar to the subarctic snows of southern Siberia. The route stretches about 3,600 miles, incorporating at least seven million footsteps, and migrates through 5,000 years of recorded lives. I’ll pace off the footsteps of ghosts.”
https://tinyurl.com/3bujz654

West Africa’s oral history griots tell us a more complete story than traditional post-colonial narratives
“The last few years have witnessed a growing recognition of oral histories in Western academies. With more authors, filmmakers, and artists from around the world highlighting the rich oral histories of West Africa, the traditions of passing knowledge through generations has invited a moment of change within wider Western establishments.”
https://tinyurl.com/yc4s3khb

Where Archaeology and Oral Tradition Coexist
“One night, while socializing in a house in Larihairu village, a younger community member asked me what I knew of the past. I replied that, as an archaeologist, I hoped to investigate human history using the materials people left behind. He replied, “You only know about the human story, but we know about the mythical beings and spiritual beings.”
https://tinyurl.com/y86r3u5e

Why Folktales Are Inspiring New Conversations
Nothing binds people better than stories, and folklore has been making and holding these connections for centuries. Today, as human-wildlife interactions escalate, and experts of all hues acknowledge that this multifaceted issue could do with more approaches than one, folklore could play an important part. A growing body of research has been stressing the need to understand how people sustain complex and diverse connections with local wildlife – especially through folktales and narratives.”
https://tinyurl.com/2p8t2538

Why It’s Important To Tell Ghost Stories During A Pandemic
“One might ask what telling ghost stories has to do with Covid, or why one would want to hear potentially macabre and spine-chilling tales of hauntings, spirits and Hawaii cryptids during a such a serious time as a pandemic. But, as anyone who has ever listened to Kapanui's stories knows, his storytelling is didactic at its deepest levels and is really about a common set of living themes rather than just ghosts…Humanity's best stories are always those that teach values, and Kapanui's stories reminded Hawaii in the middle of the pandemic that life is a precious gift, that family should be cherished because our time is so short, and that we have a certain responsibility to one another.”
https://tinyurl.com/9ztecbna

Why Medicine Needs Storytellers
“While working at Stanford for 11 years on the frontlines of a top lung transplant program, I often had a plotline running in my head. I didn’t know the narrative’s exact format, but I knew there was a story to tell.”
https://tinyurl.com/2p883sjj

Why studying arts like acting or dance can better equip business students for the post-COVID world
"Business students are more likely to be found in a financial accounting lecture or an organisational change dynamics tutorial than learning about storytelling. Yet storytelling serves as a powerful tool for communication both inside and outside organisations. Narratives enable companies to develop their own personas and for brands to forge customer relationships."|
https://tinyurl.com/yc7efkab

SOMETHING EXTRA

The links below will take you to the two previous posts with many more interesting articles about storytelling.

Storytelling In the News I 
http://karenchace.blogspot.com/2021/12/storytelling-in-news-i.html

Storytelling In the News II
http://karenchace.blogspot.com/2022/01/storytelling-in-news-ii.html

 

Please note, websites change at a rapid pace and weblinks may change or break without notice. I cannot be responsible for redirected or broken links.  At the time of this posting all links were in working order. Thank you for understanding.

 

Karen Chace 2022 ©

This blog post was researched and compiled by Karen Chace. Permission for private use is granted. Distribution, either electronically or on paper is prohibited without my expressed written permission. For permission, please contact me at storybug@aol.com. Of course, if you wish to link to my blog via your website, blog, newsletter, Facebook page or Twitter please feel free to do so; I greatly appreciate your support and personal integrity.