Why oral storytelling will always need a human touch
We tell stories. From cave paintings depicting dramatic hunting scenes to hieroglyphs, prose and poetry, music and dance to film and computer-generated imagery, anthropological studies showed that storytelling is fundamental to human existence, since its core is to connect and communicate.
It is through narrative that information about genealogy, social customs, exemplary achievements or cautionary tales is transmitted from generation to generation and across cultures.
“I think storytelling is everywhere and in everything, right? Because advertising is storytelling. Explaining anything in a classroom to kids or ‘Why I was late for school today’ is all about storytelling, because the better you If you’re the storyteller, the better you can get away with it. Our politicians are storytellers, otherwise they wouldn’t be elected,” Chitra Soundar, an Indian-British oral storyteller, told DW.
A born storyteller
Among the various media – oral, written, digital or visual – oral narrative, which is mainly done through voice and gestures, dates back millennia. In addition to narration, oral narration encompasses poems, chants, songs and even dances.
Chitra Soundar, who is also a published children’s book author, started honing her storytelling skills early in life.
“I’ve been an oral storyteller since I was probably 4 or 5 years old because our family is full of storytellers. My mother is an improvised playwright. My grandmother used to tell us a lot of stories,” explains Soundar, who won her first prize as a storyteller at school age seven.
Having once regaled his cousins with stories during slumber parties, today his core audience is mostly children in schools, libraries and literature events across the UK and abroad. She often retells stories her Indian grandmother told her growing up, “what we call tricksters’ tales, but they’re all stories about right and wrong, about justice and equality”.
In addition, Soundar has written and narrated stories for children that explain natural phenomena or climate change in different ways or that help them understand conflict resolution.
“So for me, storytelling is basically the way I look at life. As a children’s author, most of the stories I write and tell come from this hopeful world that we want to create for this generation and the next,” she explains.
Source: DW
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