Storytelling Starters ~ Awarded
Saturday, October 19th, 2013
It was a wet and windy night. Yet in Milton Keynes last Saturday, October 12th, inside the Creed Street Arts Centre in Wolverton, the welcome was warm and hospitable. We were there for the award-giving Ceremony for this year’s BASE awards.
Lots of people had come. Shonaleigh and Peter Chand hosted. A great Spoken Words Artist, Richard Frost, acted as compere for the evening. Stories were told, awards were given, acceptance speeches made. Last up, I was made the delighted recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award. As on every day since by the emails and phone calls that have followed, I felt extremely touched and honoured.
What I’m most pleased and proud about is that the Award feels like a recognition of the particular approach to storytelling that has been mine now for 30-odd years. It’s an approach I share with many others and it forms the basis of this weekly blog. I describe it as a sharing approach where, whatever the kind of storytelling occasion, be it a performance to adults or a session with Under-5s, the storyteller is in one way or another reaching out to others and in so doing acknowledging the truth that we all have stories inside us. Some stories we may not like to hear. Some may need help to be told. Some will be well told, some very badly. Some can be acknowledged only in the listening. But no single storyteller has all the stories or all the ways of telling them. Stories are our common wealth and I love and treasure the telling, the listening and the sharing.
P.S. Lots of people have asked what I got. My photo displays the answer. I hope it gives you an idea of the loveliness of the blue. (more…)