Nicola and I went to York to a conference about
storytelling with young people, organised by ICAN the International Centre for
Arts and Narrative at the Theatre Royal.
We got there Friday late afternoon in time for a really
nice hot dinner which we needed after our 5 hour journey. The first person we
saw there was our dear friend and ex trustee Rona Barbour!
After dinner Jo Blake told a story about a husband who
didn’t like listening to stories and how he changed his mind. Then there were some performances by young
people. The first one was a girl telling a personal story about her own life
and her best friend. She used simple t shirts and vests to show changes in the
story. She used a blackboard with a
chalk map of the main places in her story and she wrote on it as she told the
story. And she turned this story into a
fairytale because the friend changed into a bird. And there was an African story told by Cath
Heinemeyer with some Indian dancers.And another group of young people did a
play about refugees.
On Saturday we had a fantastic breakfast in Betty’s Tea
Rooms
(www.bettys.co.uk) which has been in York for a hundred
years.
We heard about the work of ICAN.
Then we went to a workshop given by some students on a theatre and storytelling
course at Warwick University.
They came from China, Taiwan, Portugal and England. They used gestures and sounds from Chinese
opera. They all wore black. They used a mixture of mime and narration, and we learnt a lot.
We ran a workshop on Multisensory Storytelling in the
afternoon, and we think it went very well.
Thanks to all the lovely people who
took part and to Cath Heinemeyer from ICAN for inviting us and making it
possible for us to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment