Ben Haggerty's Storytelling Survey 2004

Ben Haggerty has arguably done more to define, promote and revitalise the storytelling tradition in Britain than any other single individual in the last thirty years.

(If you know about anyone else, please let me know!)

Here are some extracts:

"The most challenging task facing a storyteller today is to make the stories of the past have valid meaning – now."

"Storytelling puts much less emphasis on ‘show’ than the theatre (however
what there is carries all the more significance and requires subtle study as there’s
always a risk of triggering the switch that turns audiences into spectators)."

"Everything is put to the service of creating a specific ‘happening’ inside the listener: the activation of imagination. A storyteller’s intention is to lead people towards their own inner selves rather than divert them away."

"...And this is why so much consideration needs to be put into creating the optimum
spatial conditions for good storytelling – the possibility of silence and focus."

"To adapt a quote from Robert Bringhurst, stories
are ‘pure spirit, made of memories and breath’"

"The nature of the triad – story/storyteller/audience – means that oral storytelling
cannot produce a material product. Books and recordings can be no more
than secondary offshoots of this sort of storytelling: playing invaluable archiving
roles."

"The absence of a material outcome contributes to the ‘invisibility’ of
storytelling that will be discussed later in this document. It also introduces one of the many enigmatic paradoxes that surround the art – each telling is ephemeral, yet the stories can continue a shape-shifting existence for tens of thousands of years (for example, motifs still abound in European fairytales that can reasonably be judged as having their roots in the Mesolithic – if not long, long, long before)."


"Oral storytellers are cultural resistance fighters who understand that the world-wide legacy of traditional narrative offers a most valuable path of access to the levels of essential human commonality that lie beneath glittering surfaces of external difference."

"There is an archaeology to narrative that reveals not only the archaeology of the imagination but also the aspiration of the soul."

"Those who have a farsighted understanding of the part oral storytelling can play in shaping contemporary British society, see that it not only has obvious implications for inter/intra-generational and inter/intra-communal communication, but also understand that this archaic means of directly exercising the imagination develops metaphorical thinking; this in turn could open doors to completely new ways of perceiving the world and questioning the function of humankind within it. It is not for nothing that very specific narratives accompany rites of passage and initiation in traditional societies."

"There are venue-shaped holes at the heart of the storytelling revival. It is almost impossible for adult and family members of the public to locate regular events of consistent quality anywhere and therefore opportunities for long-term audience development are constantly lost. There is no rhythm to the patterns of public access to performance. Rhythm can only be built on a solid foundation. Storytelling lacks even a modicum of stable and basic infrastructure."


What do you think?

The full text can be found by clicking on this link for the Society for Storytelling website:

http://www.sfs.org.uk/

and then clicking the "Publications" on the left, and choosing the "Survey of Storytelling and ACE Response" link at the bottom of the page.