Tell me a story

BENGALURU : Whether it be a good bedtime story or a folklore narrated by your grandmother, or children telling each other tales of ghosts, storytelling has been a distinct part of our culture. Even in this digital age, who doesn’t mind listening to a well-narrated story? Trying to keep this art alive, city-based theatre artiste Akshay Gandhi is coming up with an online storytelling course – ‘The Three Worlds’, which aims to explore the ways of storytelling and enhance the craft of a storyteller . The one-month-long weekend workshop will be starting from October 10.

Gandhi says the workshop is an extensive process in involvement with this form of art, where they are not just focusing on the craft but also nature of the story. “We are approaching this process in three formats, first one being the nature of the story. To tell a story, one needs to understand the genre,” he says. Once the artistes have an idea on what kind of story they are going to narrate, then they can choose the medium.

“While the traditional or verbal narrative form is the most popular in storytelling, but one can also use other mediums like visual art, dance, video clips and others,” explains Gandhi, who has been in theatre for the past 11 years. When the medium is finalised, the final stage of the training is about the storyteller himself/ herself. “In the final level, we will be training the participants on speech or how to express themselves,” he says, adding that dancers, theatre professionals and artistes from visuals media are going to be mentors of the course.

Gandhi calls it an extension of his previous project Kavad Katha, which he conducted earlier this year. “Kavad Katha is a traditional form of storytelling from Rajasthan and it’s a dying art. With my roots there, I decided to revive the culture. For this, I had to do 4-5 years of research,” says Gandhi, who after seeing the success of the project, decided to come up with an extensive workshop on storytelling. It could be a traditional art form and it might sound great to learn the craft, but will it be financially viable option to take it professionally, Gandhi says, adding, “I am in the profession for 11 years. Once you get the art form right, it can be extremely lucrative.”