Getting Into Live Storytelling
Hi Worlds!
I am working on a personal piece for a storytelling event, it will be my third time on stage delivering something in that format, and I wanted to tell you a little bit about how that happened.
First, you have to know that live personal storytelling is not a thing in France, or at least it wasn't when I moved to Canada in 2017. Comedy is big in Paris, but for some cultural reason, sharing vulnerability with a live audience is not.
But long before I emptied my apartment in Paris and got on the plane to Montreal, I had discovered the Moth through their podcast. I would do the dishes or hang my laundry listening to true stories, told live in some part of the anglophone world by the people who had lived them.
About eight months after arriving in Montreal, I saw on Facebook that a friend of mine was interested in an anglophone storytelling event called Confabulation. She couldn't make it eventually, but I was curious so I went by myself, and that night, I got hooked. Each story brought something for everyone to resonate with differently, and the generosity and vulnerability of the performers were reflected right back to them by a wonderfully supportive audience.
There was clearly an art to it, too, and that was so interesting to me. How one shares the lesser examined detail. How one drives the point home without you noticing the how. How one uses humor in a heavy story. How one welcomes the audience into their life and cares for them. How a story delivered on stage by one person is immediately, in a counterintuitive way, a conversation.
At the end, host and storyteller Matt Goldberg told us that he and his team of producers were always welcoming new storytellers, and I felt like giving it a try.
The following month, I was one of thirty-nine storytellers at Confabulation's short-story event, delivering a two-minute story on stage. Twice, because there were two rooms where stories were told simultaneously, and at intermission we switched rooms and told our story a second time. Which was awesome, because I got some feedback at intermission, and got to do it better, rush less and enjoy it more the second time. It was a story about a wild beast poking my tent in the middle of nowhere in Oregon, where I was camping with friends. The beast turned out to be my friends' black lab, and that night I became a dog person.
Shortly after the show, I started going to Confabulation's seven-week storytelling workshop called StoryLab. We were twelve students, it was facilitated by Nisha Coleman and Taylor Tower, and I learnt so much. It also resonated a lot with the writing of my memoir, and gave me great tools for it. Including precious reads:
Wired for Story, by Lisa Cron
The Art Of Memoir, by Mary Carr
On Writing, by Stephen King.
I moved to Toronto for love at the end of the workshop, and four months later I was back on stage in my new city, this time with a ten-minute story. The theme of the night was "Moving On: stories of Uprooting Your Life and Starting Anew", right down my alley. My story contained heavy subject matter, and writing it, and working on it with host and producer Paul Aflalo was a great learning experience. Delivering it was also something. I was surprised by the calm I found on stage, as I was telling something meaningful to people I'd never met. After the show, several people came up to me and thanked me for telling my story. It felt wonderful, and comforted me in the fact that sharing, is caring.
People have told me that it was brave to tell a story in my second language. But in fact, I feel like telling it in my native language would be harder. It would be a different mindset. It's possible that my second language brings me a sense of security: I feel a bit less exposed when on stage.
The storytelling community is big in Toronto, which is one of the reasons why I am very happy to live here. I am looking forward to next time, and encourage anyone to give it a try, or to go to a storytelling show. You will receive so much either way.
The following month, I was one of thirty-nine storytellers at Confabulation's short-story event, delivering a two-minute story on stage. Twice, because there were two rooms where stories were told simultaneously, and at intermission we switched rooms and told our story a second time. Which was awesome, because I got some feedback at intermission, and got to do it better, rush less and enjoy it more the second time. It was a story about a wild beast poking my tent in the middle of nowhere in Oregon, where I was camping with friends. The beast turned out to be my friends' black lab, and that night I became a dog person.
Shortly after the show, I started going to Confabulation's seven-week storytelling workshop called StoryLab. We were twelve students, it was facilitated by Nisha Coleman and Taylor Tower, and I learnt so much. It also resonated a lot with the writing of my memoir, and gave me great tools for it. Including precious reads:
Wired for Story, by Lisa Cron
The Art Of Memoir, by Mary Carr
On Writing, by Stephen King.
I moved to Toronto for love at the end of the workshop, and four months later I was back on stage in my new city, this time with a ten-minute story. The theme of the night was "Moving On: stories of Uprooting Your Life and Starting Anew", right down my alley. My story contained heavy subject matter, and writing it, and working on it with host and producer Paul Aflalo was a great learning experience. Delivering it was also something. I was surprised by the calm I found on stage, as I was telling something meaningful to people I'd never met. After the show, several people came up to me and thanked me for telling my story. It felt wonderful, and comforted me in the fact that sharing, is caring.
People have told me that it was brave to tell a story in my second language. But in fact, I feel like telling it in my native language would be harder. It would be a different mindset. It's possible that my second language brings me a sense of security: I feel a bit less exposed when on stage.
The storytelling community is big in Toronto, which is one of the reasons why I am very happy to live here. I am looking forward to next time, and encourage anyone to give it a try, or to go to a storytelling show. You will receive so much either way.
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| Artwork by Lisa Congdon posted on The Jealous Curator's instagram |
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