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.New From Afar
Alfred Stevens, 1860's
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.
