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    What Storytelling Is. An Attempt at Defining The Art Form

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    sahiedahtun
    Storytelling is an interactive performance art that involves a teller using language and physical gestures to reveal a story to a live audience. The audience then uses their imagination to visualize the story based on the teller's cues. A story generally involves a narrative structure with characters that conveys accumulated wisdom or lessons. A telling is the oral presentation of a story where the teller and audience actively co-create the experience. Storytelling is uniquely human as it allows people to interpret and share experiences. It is a spontaneous process that emerges from the interaction between the teller and audience.

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    What Storytelling Is. An Attempt at Defining The Art Form

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    sahiedahtun
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    Storytelling is an interactive performance art that involves a teller using language and physical gestures to reveal a story to a live audience. The audience then uses their imagination to visualize the story based on the teller's cues. A story generally involves a narrative structure with characters that conveys accumulated wisdom or lessons. A telling is the oral presentation of a story where the teller and audience actively co-create the experience. Storytelling is uniquely human as it allows people to interpret and share experiences. It is a spontaneous process that emerges from the interaction between the teller and audience.

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    Storytelling is an interactive performance art that involves a teller using language and physical gestures to reveal a story to a live audience. The audience then uses their imagination to visualize the story based on the teller's cues. A story generally involves a narrative structure with characters that conveys accumulated wisdom or lessons. A telling is the oral presentation of a story where the teller and audience actively co-create the experience. Storytelling is uniquely human as it allows people to interpret and share experiences. It is a spontaneous process that emerges from the interaction between the teller and audience.

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    35 views2 pages

    What Storytelling Is. An Attempt at Defining The Art Form

    Uploaded by

    sahiedahtun
    Storytelling is an interactive performance art that involves a teller using language and physical gestures to reveal a story to a live audience. The audience then uses their imagination to visualize the story based on the teller's cues. A story generally involves a narrative structure with characters that conveys accumulated wisdom or lessons. A telling is the oral presentation of a story where the teller and audience actively co-create the experience. Storytelling is uniquely human as it allows people to interpret and share experiences. It is a spontaneous process that emerges from the interaction between the teller and audience.

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    What is 

    Storytelling?
    A Definition discussed by members of the National Storytelling Association
    The following description of "Storytelling" was posted by e-mail in a discussion on how to define
    "Storytelling" on the Storytell Listserv.

    What Storytelling is. An attempt at defining


    the art form.
    At its core, storytelling is the art of using language, vocalization, and/or physical
    movement and gesture to reveal the elements and images of a story to a specific, live
    audience. A central, unique aspect of storytelling is its reliance on the audience to
    develop specific visual imagery and detail to complete and co-create the story.

    What is a Story?

    Most dictionaries define a story as a narrative account of a real or imagined event or
    events. Within the storytelling community, a story is more generally agreed to be a
    specific structure of narrative with a specific style and set of characters and which
    includes a sense of completeness. Through this sharing of experience we use stories to
    pass on accumulated wisdom, beliefs, and values. Through stories we explain how
    things are, why they are, and our role and purpose. Stories are the building blocks of
    knowledge, the foundation of memory and learning. Stories connect us with our
    humanness and link past, present, and future by teaching us to anticipate the possible
    consequences of our actions.

    What is a telling?

    It is the live, person-to-person oral and physical presentation of a story to an audience.


    "Telling" involves direct contact between teller and listener. It mandates the direct
    presentation of the story by the teller. The teller's role is to prepare and present the
    necessary language, vocalization, and physicality to effectively and efficiently
    communicate the images of a story. The listener's role is to actively create the vivid,
    multi-sensory images, actions, characters, and events---the reality---of the story in
    their mind based on the performance by the teller, and on their past experiences,
    beliefs, and understandings. The completed story happens in the mind of the listener,
    unique and personal for each individual.

    1. Storytelling is an interactive performance art form. Direct interaction


    between the teller and audience is an essential element of the storytelling
    experience. An audience responds to the teller's words and actions. The teller
    uses this generally non-verbal feedback to immediately, spontaneously, and
    improvisationally adjust the tones, wording, and pace of the story to better meet
    the needs of the audience.
    2. Storytelling is, by design, a co-creative process. Storytelling audiences do not
    passively receive a story from the teller, as a viewer receives and records the
    content of a television program or motion picture. The teller provides no visual
    images, no stage set, and generally, no costumes related to story characters or
    historic period. Listeners create these images based on the performer's telling
    and on their own experiences and beliefs.
    3. Storytelling is, by its nature, personal, interpretive, and uniquely
    human. Storytelling passes on the essence of who we are. Stories are a prime
    vehicle for assessing and interpreting events, experiences, and concepts from
    minor moments of daily life to the grand nature of the human condition. It is an
    intrinsic and basic form of human communication. More than any other form of
    communication, the telling of stories in an integral and essential part of the
    human experience.
    4. Storytelling is a process, a medium for sharing, interpreting, offering the
    content and meaning of a story to an audience. Because storytelling is
    spontaneous and experiential, and thus a dynamic interaction between teller and
    listener, it is far more difficult to describe than is the script and camera
    directions of a movie, or the lines and stage direction notes of a play.
    Storytelling emerges from the interaction and cooperative, coordinated efforts
    of teller and audience.

    (The material on this page has been condensed from a e-mailed posting to the
    members of the Storytell Listserv of a working definition being considered by
    the National Storytelling Association in 1997.)

    http://www.eldrbarry.net/roos/st_defn.htm

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