StoryQuest

Oral narratives help audiences read or decode the imagery of artifacts and to contextualise exhibitions. Buildings, environments, ideas and objects can become immersed in a listener’s imagination, allowing them to be perceived in a completely new light. This in turn provides a route to discussion and debate about exhibits and artifacts, history, specific countries, cultures and traditions, and habitats or environments.

A storyteller creates a transient exhibition which is on display in the imagination and memory of all those who hear the stories. The act of storytelling is a celebration of intangible heritage, and the stories told are pieces of ephemeral art.

• What to do?
• What stories?
• Who will be telling stories?
• Storytelling fees
• Collecting stories
• Workshops
• Where will it happen
• Who is it for?
• How long should the stories and story sessions be?
• When to hold the event?

What to do

The fabulous variation between cultural venues, their environments, exhibits, interpretative approaches and resources means that there are endless variations in the ways in which storytellers can work in these contexts. You may wish to:

• use storytelling in conjunction with a collection which usually receives little attention, or on a new collection
• focus on a specific theme, culture, period of history, or environment
• create an exhibition of oral tradition using a storyteller to produce imagined worlds, which the audiences then recreate using art
• collect stories and oral traditions from local communities
• use storytelling in unusual places within a building, allowing audiences to hear stories which could possibly have occurred in those places, or which people may have heard in those places
• organise a “storywalk” through your venue or its grounds.

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What stories?

Storytelling is the oral retelling and performance of traditional tales. These may be jokes, legends, fairy tales, epics, folk tales, urban legends and also include rhymes, riddles, sayings, proverbs, and nonsense rhymes, which have been passed from person to person over time. Your venue may have its own mythology of ghost stories, legends and true life tales which can also be explored and told. There are thousands of these stories deriving from cultures from across the world. They may last from 1 minute, to a matter of hours or even days, and can be told anywhere, from around the table, to performance, to educational and community contexts. More than one layer of story can surround an object, a building, or place. For example, there might be a narrative behind the iconography that decorates the object, the object itself might play a part in a story, and there’s the story of how the object came to be in the collection, and so on. (back to top)

Who will be telling stories?

The most obvious answer is to work with a professional storyteller. If you’re collecting stories from local communities or you’re interested in true stories from your venue, the storytellers may also be local people or your own staff, but they may not necessarily have the performance skills to entertain audiences of strangers. You could employ a storyteller to develop your staff’s storytelling skills. Whoever you work with make sure that they have an up to date CRB disclosure if they’re working with children or vulnerable members of the community. (back to top)

Storytelling fees

The cost of a professional storyteller will depend on what you’re going to ask them to do. The average day’s fee for a storyteller responding to your project with stories from their existing repertoire will cost about £250 (plus expenses). If you want a storyteller to develop new and specific material for an event, you will need to pay for research and preparation time. If you’re running longer-term projects, would like a residency, or if you want storytellers to run workshops for your staff or for the public, then you’ll need to negotiate fees with the artist. (back to top)

Collecting stories

If you run a story collection programme you need a clear idea of what stories you’re after. It is often useful for a professional storyteller to run collection projects as they can share expert strategies for eliciting relevant material. You may want to set up places where people can bring stories to record or swap. You may set up an outreach programme collecting stories from the community, or you may work with school children collecting stories from their homes. (back to top)

Workshops

You may want to follow-up a storytelling session with practical skills development workshops so people can learn to tell stories themselves, or you may want to work to encourage creative responses to stories, with art workshops where people can create artifacts and exhibits based on their imaginative experiences. (back to top)

Where will it happen?

Storytelling can take place wherever you can fit a storyteller and an audience, so long as it’s quiet, and the conditions support focused listening (and it’s not too cold or raining on anyone!) Consider the acoustic quality of the space and any visual and physical distractions and consult the storyteller. Ideally harmonise the storytelling and the spaces so that the stories reflect the space and visa versa. To create focus it may be necessary to close a gallery, or provide alternate throughways around your building. Staff should always be on hand to move audiences in case of emergencies. Sometimes you might wish to transform a space appropriately. Textiles or rugs can easily create a good atmospheric for storytelling but remember that inappropriate visual stimuli may work against the storyteller. You may wish to move around your venue. Most storytellers can design site specific “story-walks” that can guide small audiences along a narrative trail: crossing habitats, cultures or time as they do so. (back to top)

Who is it for?

Events can be designed for school parties, families, local community groups, the general public, anyone you like provided that it includes children (anyone up to the age of 16). You may want to mix audiences from different generations or cultures. Your chosen audience and its anticipated size are important factors for helping you to decide what your project will be like, where and when you do it and what stories are told. Storytelling is by nature a very accessible art-form. If you are working with audiences with special needs of any kind, then remember to discuss this with the storyteller. Adaptations may need to be made for the deaf and hearing impaired and there are signers who have experience of working alongside storytellers. (back to top)

How long should the stories and story sessions be?

Stories can last from a few minutes to hours. If you’re aiming to run an event within your venue which passers-by can “nod into”, then lots of short stories will allow people to come and go. If you’re organising an event with a pre-booked audience then longer stories can be told. Young children will sit attentively through surprisingly long stories. A good length for a storytelling session is between 45 minutes and an hour. Many storytellers will do three such sessions in a day. Devise a timetable of story sessions to suit your event and the stories being told. (back to top)

When to hold the event?

Your event must be held between the 2nd November and the 30th November. School parties obviously have specific hours when they can visit. For family and community groups choose times and days when they’re likely to be able to come. You will know when your public are likely to visit at weekends. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Be bold - make an event! Ghost stories surely need to be told in the middle of the night, and stories of banquets can be accompanied by feasts? For more information about performance storytelling, visit The Crick Crack Club. (back to top)