Tag: story slams
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Oral Tradition – Plus Let Me Tell You Another Story…
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A little mouse told me? Well, not exactly…but somebody did! [This is longer than my other A-Z posts…the musings plus the story…grab a cuppa maybe?!] By definition, personal stories (that is, first-person personal-experience narratives) are not transmitted to the teller through an oral tradition: they happened to the teller. So,…
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Narcissism?
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I’m afraid it must be addressed. Elephant in the room, you know… …the feeling that all this personal, first-person, “me, myself, and I”-ness of story slams is, well, at its root narcissistic. And that’s not generally considered a good thing. It is a suspicion, sometimes an accusation, among some storytellers/folks…
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Limits, Time Limits
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Story slams impose a pretty strict limit on the length of stories told. [Theme for this A-Z April Daily Blogging Challenge: “Story Slams & Traditional Storytelling – Bridging the Distance”] Five minutes seems to be typical (as does an additional grace period of a half-minute or a minute). But the…
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Kindness – So Glad THAT Was the Response
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Another short story: The first story slam I went to in October, “Truth Be Told – The Boulder Story Slam,” was an eye-opening experience. The venue was a back room with a small stage at a restaurant, Shine. The place was packed. Servers squeezed through the rows and tables to…
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Judging at Story Slams
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Being a judge I’m pretty sure I’ll never volunteer to be a judge at a story slam. I’m happy to leave that part of the game to someone else! Therefore it’s an act of the imagination to answer the question sometimes put to me: “How do they figure the scores?!”
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Heritage
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Heritage: Something transmitted by or acquired from a predecessor: legacy, inheritance; tradition Oh-so-very-much could be written on this, but for today just a brief consideration of a very large difference between traditional storytelling and story slam storytelling – and while I’ve so far written more about process and form, this…
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Festivals & Conferences of Storytelling (but of Story Slams?)
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[Top photograph is from the 2012 Beyond the Border Wales International Storytelling Festival, showing just one of the dozen concert venues throughout the St. Donats Castle grounds. I had the delight of performing shows there that year. WONDERFUL storytelling festival!] Think about it… Two or more solid days – no…
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Emcee – Makes all the difference!
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…And never more so than in a story slam… Reams could be written about the role and skill of emceeing. (And yes, “emcee” is a real word, having evolved from “MC,” short for “Master/Mistress of Ceremonies”). When it comes to storytelling events, I have witnessed fine storytellers who…are less gifted,…
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Descriptions / Definitions
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“Story slam.” “Traditional storytelling.” What do these even mean?! [Theme for this month: “Story Slams & Traditional Storytelling – Bridging the Distance”]
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Competition
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“A storytelling contest?! No way!” And I shook my head in distaste, even a bit of disbelief. After all, storytelling is all about community, and connection, and communication, and strengthening bonds, and cooperation, and…not competing!