For Rosie, story is as inseparable from life as growing plants or loving animals. She loves storytelling with a passion. She loves to create stories, to learn traditional tales, to hear good tellers, to work her way through the deep understanding behind a wisdom tale or historical epic.
“Still chuckling over your tales of errant and characterful animal friends. I particularly like your way of telling stories as your manner is totally natural and to my mind that is how storytelling should be. It’s like a playful conversation with friends. Some storytelling I find, that while I admire the expertise – doesn’t reach me in that warm and natural way. ” Sylvia Troon, storyteller and puppeteer.
Human beings understand life’s experiences through storytelling. Thats neuro-scientific fact. Through story, we join areas of the brain together to create understanding and memories. Working with story develops our capacity to learn, to recall, to manipulate data. Sounds cold until you remember how much pleasure bright imagination can bring.
There are many types of storytelling. We use its skills everyday in presentations, marketing, films, novels, music-making, animation, radio, tv- you name it, if it communicates an idea it uses story skills. Traditional oral storytelling as a bardic art is ancient and much more intimate. We come together with the teller as medium to share imagination and wonder. We meet eye to eye, mind to mind, heart to heart. We share breath as our emotions rise and fall in synch. This wonderful art is enjoying a resurgence, thanks to organisations like the Scottish Storytelling Forum and festivals like Beyond the Border. As storytellers we play our part by sharing our skill, our stories: our international family is growing. The internet provides contacts, resources and new understanding. We as tellers want to share these oratorial skills with you; to go on journeys together. Story clubs are springing up. Performance poetry nights seem to be everywhere. We live in once-upon-a-wonder-filled-time.