Hello everyone! World Storytelling Day was officially on Monday, March 20, 2023. On Saturday, March 18, I participated, for the third time, in the Baden Storytellers' Guild World Storytelling Day (WSD) Concert. This year's theme was Together We Can.
Our event subtitle was Stories of Hope. I learned so much while preparing for this event!
One of the most important things I learned is the priority of fully researching a story choice early in the process of preparing for an event. With no regrets, I immersed myself in the work of preparing for my performance at the Storytellers of Canada - Conteurs du Canada Conference. About one month before the March 18 WSD Concert, I lifted my head long enough to acknowledge the need to learn more about the origins of my chosen WSD story.
Early on in my brief time learning about oral storytelling, I made a commitment to not tell stories from cultures oppressed by colonization unless I have a very good reason and have done extensive research, relationship building, and reconciliation work. I realized this story was not mine to tell. That story needed to be respected and , left for appropriate voices to share. Perhaps one day I will hear it told by the voice of someone from the culture where it belongs.
The story I did tell at the concert is one I developed over months and months in collaboration with my father. I workshopped it in the Storytelling Toronto Master Class taught by Celia Lottridge and performed it on February 9 in the Master Class concert. It worked with the theme, despite being a scary story and was performance ready. I spent more time with it over the next month or so, honing it and making the language more efficient. Finally, on the day of the concert, all of my work paid off with the story "landing" ( a term I attribute to Mary Baldasaro of the Baden Storytellers' Guild) shortly before the Zoom meeting opened.
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