Wednesday ( 16 - 04 - 2008 )

Hello,
Today we went to the storytelling festival in Alden Biesen.
All the students were going to some English stories for adults, except for me and Lore.
We are doing our final assessment about telling stories and that is why we had chosen to listen to Dutch stories for children.



Storytellers:

‘A little bit of Annie’ by F. Cools

This performance took place in a cellar. It was very coisy in here. There were chairs in a U-form around a little stage. The room was dusky, there were only some spotlights that aimed to this stage. On the stage there was a little table with some stuff on it.

When the play started, you could hear some nice music on the background. There was a man busy with writing and reading on his desk.

The man was dramatising/ acting a story. He was playing a man who likes to read books from Annie M.G. Schmidt. He was a little bit obsessed. During the play he tells a little bit more about Annie, he tells some stories and also some poems of her.

It was obvious that this performance was for children around the age of 8 years. All the stories he told were things that these children like. He told for example a little story about a girl who was scared from soap and water. In an other story he told about a child who had a magic stick. He turned all the addults in different things such as the teacher in a pie, an old man into a tree... The subjects and all the jokes he was making in between were meant for children of this age.

A lot of his senteces rhymed. That was amusing for the children. They were sometimes completing his sentences.

He also used sometimes a special way to tell a story of Annie M.G. Schmidt. He would sing the song and play with his guitarre. That was very original and often also very funny because he played with the tones during the singing. To draw the attention, he would sing very load or very high, very false...

He was very good in storytelling according to me. I liked a little piece in which he was playing some different characters. When he put on an other kind of glaces, he became an other person with an other voice, an other attitude... He was really giving the best of himself such you can see on the following picture.

'Why tastes the sea so salty?’ by M. Goossens

This performance took place in a tent. The chairs were standing in lines and there were benches and pillows so that all the children could see.

There were some blue cloths on te stage and different instruments.

The woman started with telling that she was a fairy of stories. You could here a tinkeling instrument while she said a rhym. (rinkel, tinkel, open the gate to the fairy wood, you are all kidds of kings and queens, let us in, so that the story can begin)

This woman told 3 different stories.

• The first story was about a special frog on a farm who could let it rain by croacking. On a day he wouldn't croack anymore because he was unhappy. The other animals convinced him by saying a poem to him.


• The second story was about the see. There was a boy who was a beachcomber. On a day he saw a mermaid. After seeing this, he wanted to become a painter. He wanted to draw the see. He wanted to start drawning with the beginning of the see, but he didn't know where the beginning was. He got in a little boat and went looking for it. He met other people who all had a different explanation. They all were wrong, except an old man who said it all begins with the sky. The clouds give water to the see when it rains. Finaly the boy could start painting! He made a beautifull painting with the sky, the see and a mermaid in the middle of the see.
  
• The last story was also about the see. In this story the woman explained why the see tastes so salty on a fairy tale - like way. It all has to do with some magic millstones which could make whatever you want them to make.

I really enjoyed the storytelling of this woman. I like fairy tales and she brang it on a mysterious way. I liked her introduction with the musical instrument and the rhym. During her play she used a lot of other instruments which represented different sounds. (the see, the rain, the wind, the storm...) I really liked this aspect. It was something very original!

I also liked it that she interacted with the audiance a lot! She did a really great job with this!

Ways of interaction she used:

- She asked some questions to the children such as: "Which animals live on a farm?", "Do you like to go to the see?",...

- She repeted a lot sentences. In this way the children could join in when she was repeting something. She asked for example to say a poem with her to let the frog croack again. She repeted it several times, louder and loader, until it was good enough for the frog.

- When the children said something spontaneous, she reacted to this. When she was speaking about an old man with a long beard and a staff, a child said it was st. Nicalas. She reacted to this and said: "That would be possible, but this is a different man."

- ...

I really enjoyed both performances. They were both completely different from eachother! The first man was dramatising and acting more, while the woman was more telling stories. Because of this fact, there were a lot of differences and a completely other atmosphere.

Interviews

After the both performances, we asked some time for an interview with both persons. The man had a lot more experience with storytelling than the woman. He has done an acting education and had performed for a lot of audiances as a storyteller. The woman was just someone who loved to do this with her children and started doing this a little time ago. It was really interesting to hear some of the answers to our questions of both of them!

Workshop about storytelling by Daniel Morden

Daniel Morden is an Englishman, who gave a workshop about how you prepare and tell a story. This was a really interesting workshop!

In the beginning he told us a story. He began with making a special sound with a bell for creating a special sphere.

The story was about an orphan, who had to live with his uncle. His uncle was a great hunter, but not a great substitute-father. He didn't wanted the boy and left him for death in a cave in the forest. When the boy sang his family-song, there were animals who helped him out of the cage. The animals wanted to give him a family. He could chose his animal-family and so he ended up with the bears. He was step by step changing into a bear. On a day, his uncle was hunting in the forest. He drived the bears into a cave. They were all facing the death. But the uncle recognised the boy and said that he regretted that he left the boy in the would. The boy forgived the man and went back to live with him.

After we heard the story, we had to write in couples 7 sentences about the most important things in the story. Afterwards we had to reduce it into 3 sentences. We also had to think about an important message that you want to bring by telling this story.

It was very interesting to hear what all the other students had done with this task. We all had a lot of differences and simularities.

We had to do this, because when you are looking for a story to tell, you have to make it a story of your own. When you only keep the main frame of the story, you can fill in the rest on your own way by using your own humor, life-experience...

Daniel also told us that it is important that the imagination is very important when you tell a story. It is important that you have an image of your own about the story. In this way you can give some more details of persons and things while you tell a story. The childrens imagination gets stimulated. To much details is also not good, because the children have to imagine something in their own heads that is maybe different than you have. It would also be very boring if you are telling to much details.

The next thing we did, was something very interesting and fun to do.

We had to splitt up into two groups. My group had to leave the room, because Daniel would tell a story to the other group. When he was done, they had to prepare in an other room how they would tell this story to us in pairs.

It was now time for us to hear a different story. It was a very interesting story which i maybe will use in the future when i am a teacher.

It was a story about a man who was very unlucky. He wanted to meet God to ask him for some good luck. On his journy to God, he met some different things. First he met a wolf. The wolf asked what the man was doing. He told him that he was looking for God to ask him for some good luck. The wolf asked him if he also wanted to ask why he was so hungry. The man would do this. After a while, he met a tree. This tree was also curious about what the man was doing. Again he told it and the tree wanted him to ask to God why he was so thirsty. The man again agreed to do this. after some while, he met a lady. She was also curious and asked also of the man if he wanted to ask to God why she was so lonely.

Finaly, he met God. He said that he would find his luck on the way and gave also the answers to the other questions.

The men left and met the lady again. She asked about her question to which he answered: "You have to be pleased with a man, it doesn't matter how he looks or if you argue... You will feel a lot better then when you are alone." The woman told him that the problem was, that she never saw someone, except for him. That gave her an idea! She asked him to stay with her. The man liked the idea, because she was very beautifull, but he refused her offer because he had to find his good luck.

After a while he met the tree again, who asked also about its question. The man said that the problem was under the ground. There was a box with a lot of gold. If he would remove it, he would get to the water. The tree asked the man if he would like to help im. He said that he could keep the gold. The man thought again that it was a great idea, because he would have a fortune and wouldn't have to work again for his living. But again he refused the offer because he had to look for his good luck.

Eventually, he saw the wolf who also wanted to know an answer to his question. The man said: "God said that you should eat the first stupid man which you meet!"

And so the man was eaten. He got the luck that he deserved, because he wasn't pleased with the things he came across.

A really liked the story, because there were some funny things in it. I also think it is good that there isn't a happy ending. Most of the time it ends good, but this story doesn't and that's something original and new for the most children.

After listening to the story we had some time to also prepare the story to tell to the other students.

After a while, we had to sit in groups of 4 and told the story to eachother in a way we would do it with children. It was a good practice to do this with each other.

After this workshop, we got some time to interview also this man. He gave us some great answers to our questions and good tips which we should use for telling a story!

I am very pleased with this workshop and the interview! I learned a lot about telling a story. I will take these things with me into the future!