Oral Storytelling – An Introduction to Bilingual Co-telling

About

Bilingual co-telling at its best is a jigsaw of imagery, languages, improvisation and a shared narrative line. In this course, we will dive into a variety of techniques employable by two oral storytellers who jointly tell one story to their audience.

Every oral storyteller who has co-told a story knows how exciting the sharing of story, space and audience can be. Yet co-telling can be taken a step further: Both tellers speak different languages whilst they steer clear of one-to-one direct translation. But how can that work? Which techniques can be used to knit a story together so that an audience - which might only understand one of the two languages – still gets the whole story? What are the cornerstones of this jigsaw-like bilingual telling and what are its main pitfalls? How do we work dramaturgically to capture content and languages in equal measures?

In this workshop we will explore different methods of bilingual co-telling from having chosen a tale to its performance. The practical work consists of hands-on exercises, demonstration, exploration of personal positioning and teller perspective, presentation, sharing stories and constructive (peer-)feedback.

Course leader

Ragnhild A. Mørch. www.ramorch.com and Suse Weisse. www.suseweisse.de

Target group

The course is open to experienced oral storytellers who wish to experiment with bilingual co-telling. The main course language is English.

Fee info