Megaconference

[Eric Miller <>]

UPDATE regarding the 2013 Chennai Storytelling Festival:

Yesterday (Sunday 3 Feb) was the third and final day

of the 2013 Chennai Storytelling Festival,

www.storytellinginstitute.org/34.html .

(Chennai is on India's southeast coast.)

A highlight of the day was the Workshop on Storytelling

and Healing/Counselling/Therapy. 

The first part of the Workshop was conducted by Magdalene 

Jeyarathnam, director of Chennai's Center for Counselling

( http://centerforcounselling.blogspot.in ).

Then we were then joined -- via Skype videoconference --

by members of Acoustic Traditional

( www.acoustictraditional.org ), communicating with

us from their "Mountain Centre for the Study of Indigenous

Storytelling Traditions", in Darjeeling, in the Himalayas.

Acoustic Traditional is founded and directed by tribal

people from the Darjeeling area: its mission includes

using storytelling to educate and raise consciousness

regarding tribal cultures (especially of India).

The Acoustic Traditional people, Salil and Minket,

had with them a shaman from a tribe in the Darjeeling

area (a member of the Lepcha people, I believe). This

shaman conducted a ritual with us via videoconference

(with Salil translating).

A point that came out in the ensuing discussion is

that Storytelling and Healing tends to focus

1) on the individual, in therapeutic practice in the West;

2) on the individual and family (and community), in therapeutic

practice in India in general;

3) and on the individual, family (and community) -- and nature

and Mother Nature (the spiritual) -- in tribal therapeutic

practice.

This Skype videoconference was the third videoconference

in the Chennai Storytelling Festival. The first two were with,

1) Johanna Hongell-Darsee in New Mexico, USA

( http://johanna.itgo.com ). Johanna is originally

from Finland. She told us a story that included

ballads from Medieval Europe, and the Appalachian

Mountains.

2) Storyteller and Communication Coach Tim Sheppard, in

Bristol, England ( www.timsheppard.co.uk ). Tim conducted

a brief Storytelling Workshop via videoconference, especially

regarding the value of taking pauses in one's telling.

As a videoconference artist and facilitator for almost

twenty years, I put one very useful method to use:

For two of these Skype videoconferences -- the ones with

people in Bristol and Darjeeling -- we used the telephone

system to handle the audio, and used Skype videoconference

via the Internet only for the video. This is because audio

at times lags behind video, and at times breaks up,

when one videoconferences via Skype on the Internet. In

Chennai, we used a mobile phone, which had an audio

output -- one end of a cable was plugged into the mobile

phone, the other end of the cable was plugged into a

speaker that amplified the incoming audio so that it

could be heard by the people in the auditorium in

Chennai.

One participant in Chennai asked the shaman in

Darjeeling if long-distance communication necessarily

weakened the power of ritual (including storytelling).

The shaman answered that distance, and the nature of

the communication method used, are not the primary

issues. He said shamans are anyway used to communicating

over vast distances (via mental/spiritual practices known

as telepathy, astral travel, etc).

Throughout the weekend, We fondly remembered New York

City-based Storyteller Diane Wolkstein (she passed away

in Taiwan some days ago). Diane visited Chennai in 2006

( www.hindu.com/mp/2006/03/18/stories/2006031802080500.htm ).

She had also recently performed and taught at the Singapore

Storytelling Festival -- and that Festival's Artistic

Director, Kamini Ramachandran ( www.moonshadowstories.com ),

was the Guest Co-Host of this year's Chennai Storytelling

Festival.

***

Kamini Ramachandran, and approx 12 other participants

in the 2013 Chennai Storytelling Festival, are scheduled

to leave Chennai this evening, for a two-day "Storytelling

Workshop in the Countryside" -- in Thanjavur, where 

Dr C Sundaresan, HOD, Dept of Folklore, Tamil University,

is gathering traditional storytellers who would give us 

training in a local style of telling of folk tales (Raja-Rani 

stories, and Grandmother stories), in which the narrator

often breaks into song -- as the narrator (singing about

the story), and as characters (singing their thoughts).

Additional info about this field-trip is at

www.storytellinginstitute.org/200.html#c .

Best regards,

- Eric

Chennai

Dr Eric Miller (PhD in Folklore)

Director, World Storytelling Institute

98403 94282

www.storytellinginstitute.org

www.storytellingandvideoconferencing.com