MythOff

I am beyond delighted to welcome Csenge Zalka as Guest Blogger today! She is a Co-Host for the A-Z Challenge, a storyteller, scholar, teacher, blogger…and the MythOff USA Representative. So when she found out I planned to address “MythOff” for my M post (for my Daily Blogging Challenge theme of “Story Slams & Traditional Storytelling – Bridging the Distance”) and offered to guest-write it – poor thing, I nearly screamed my enthusiastic “Oooh, YES!” in her ear. Good thing we were only Facebook messaging – saved the poor woman’s hearing.

Thank you, thank you, Csenge!  

She writes…

MythOff, simply put, is a mythology slam:

A storytelling event where people on the stage compete in telling traditional myths. It was invented by young storytellers Clare Muireann Murphy (Ireland), Love Ersare (Sweden) and Torgrim Mellum Stene (Norway). The first MythOff took place in Stockholm in 2010, and since then, the event has circled the globe.

The mission of MythOff reads: “MythOff aims to revitalize mythology, bring new audiences and venues to storytelling, and promote international storytelling relations.”

Simply put, it is an event that brings mythology to places (pubs and coffee houses) and audiences (young adults and college students) that are not usually associated with traditional storytelling.

So, what happens at a MythOff event?

Each storyteller tells a myth. Storytellers are paired up into rounds. After each round, the audience gets to vote on the winner, and silly prizes are handed out. One event usually consists of two to four rounds.

Here are 5 things that make MythOff events great:

1. They are not about the tellers. Audiences vote on things within the myths – “Most useful magical object,” “Most attractive hero,” “Monster you would rather keep as a pet,” etc. This makes voting more fun, the event less competitive, and makes the audience engage with the stories, rather than judging the telling technique.

2. They are a challenge (much like A to Z!). They inspire storytellers to expand their mythical repertoire. Sometimes storytellers choose the myths they want to tell – while other times, they might draw a random mythology from a hat! Selection happens weeks before the event, so everyone has time to research, practice, and prepare.

3. They have many variations. It is really up to the organizers’ creativity. In the past, we’ve played with ideas of MythOff Origins (where people told myths from their own background); MythOff Make it or Break it (where you could only tell creation and destruction myths); MythOff Greeks vs Persians (where each round faced off a Greek and a Persian myth), as well as several others.

4. They are playful, but high quality: MythOff was invented to promote the telling of myths. No matter how silly it gets, the myths are always told in their original form, without fracturing or parody, and to the best of the participating storytellers’ ability.

5. Last but not least: MythOff is a brand, just like The Moth. That means that any storyteller can organize a MythOff event, as long as they follow the basic set of guidelines. For basic information, visit the MythOff Facebook page. If you are interested in organizing, contact one of the curators: Clare Murphy for Europe, or Csenge Zalka for the USA (or either of them for the rest of the globe).

Myths can be tremendous fun to tell, and just as much fun to hear; it is up to us to create new spaces for them in our lives!

And Csenge offers more good links:

• You can read another article about the MythOff on the National Storytelling Network’s blog here.
• For whimsical and colorful reports on previous MythOff events, visit The Multicolored Diary
• or the MythOff Facebook page.

Thanks for reading Csenge’s post on MythOff! – Pam