Tweet
Chandigarh Newsline, India
Oct 2 2011
Telling Tales
by Parul Bajaj
Vergine Gulbenkian stitches together stories from around the world and
presents them in her own dramatic style
Her lyrical voice takes you to lands far away, where tall mountains
loom over the sea and castles are hidden inside deep forests. Vergine
Gulbenkian, a storyteller from London, doesn't just narrate a story,
she emotes with her hands, modulates her voice and throws in snatches
of songs so that, for a listener, imagination and reality converge
into one image. For the last 20 years, Gulbenkian has been involved
with the revival and reinvention of the art of storytelling. The
efforts recently brought her to the British Library for storytelling
sessions in schools and the library.
`A playwright, dramatist, director and storyteller, I play all these
roles at the same time,'' says Gulbenkian, who has trained in theatre.
`The audience is hungry for stories, as it gives them a metaphorical
way of thinking,' she adds. Gulbenkian fills her cornucopia of stories
from myths, epics and tales from across the world. `I try and
understand how stories travel and change, and I cook them to share
with listeners,' she says.
Her family came from Armenia, and she grew up listening to `some
amazing Armenian stories, which I edit and rework,'' says Gulbenkian.
She likes to work with stories that have a big frame, can be
interconnected, have meaning and are easily digested. `I make a map,
trace the passage of the story and before I choose it, I ask myself,
why should I share it,'' she adds. Some of Gulbenkian's favourites are
Armenian folk tales, the Arabian Nights, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata
and the Mesopotamian myths.
Her story sharing is not restricted to schools and children's clubs,
but designed for museums, studio theatres and art festivals. `Stories
bring to life both backgrounds and concepts and we need to understand
that it's the narrative form that human beings understand the most,''
says Gulbenkian, adding that London has as many as 70 storytelling
clubs. A storyteller needs few props - `a musical instrument and a
percussionist are enough,' she smiles.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/telling-tales/854667/
From: A. Papazian
Oct 2 2011
Telling Tales
by Parul Bajaj
Vergine Gulbenkian stitches together stories from around the world and
presents them in her own dramatic style
Her lyrical voice takes you to lands far away, where tall mountains
loom over the sea and castles are hidden inside deep forests. Vergine
Gulbenkian, a storyteller from London, doesn't just narrate a story,
she emotes with her hands, modulates her voice and throws in snatches
of songs so that, for a listener, imagination and reality converge
into one image. For the last 20 years, Gulbenkian has been involved
with the revival and reinvention of the art of storytelling. The
efforts recently brought her to the British Library for storytelling
sessions in schools and the library.
`A playwright, dramatist, director and storyteller, I play all these
roles at the same time,'' says Gulbenkian, who has trained in theatre.
`The audience is hungry for stories, as it gives them a metaphorical
way of thinking,' she adds. Gulbenkian fills her cornucopia of stories
from myths, epics and tales from across the world. `I try and
understand how stories travel and change, and I cook them to share
with listeners,' she says.
Her family came from Armenia, and she grew up listening to `some
amazing Armenian stories, which I edit and rework,'' says Gulbenkian.
She likes to work with stories that have a big frame, can be
interconnected, have meaning and are easily digested. `I make a map,
trace the passage of the story and before I choose it, I ask myself,
why should I share it,'' she adds. Some of Gulbenkian's favourites are
Armenian folk tales, the Arabian Nights, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata
and the Mesopotamian myths.
Her story sharing is not restricted to schools and children's clubs,
but designed for museums, studio theatres and art festivals. `Stories
bring to life both backgrounds and concepts and we need to understand
that it's the narrative form that human beings understand the most,''
says Gulbenkian, adding that London has as many as 70 storytelling
clubs. A storyteller needs few props - `a musical instrument and a
percussionist are enough,' she smiles.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/telling-tales/854667/
From: A. Papazian