“I know a thousand ways of telling a story,” remarked Probir Guha, veteran theatre person who is known for his path breaking Alternative Living Theatre. PeaceWorks invited Probir Guha to conduct a workshop for our ‘Share Stories Open Minds’ volunteers. Our volunteers described the two-hour long workshop as a ‘deeply satisfying and educative’ experience.
Reading out of storybooks — relating stories from memory —making it up at the spur of the moment can be both fulfilling and fun but when it is coupled with powerful intonation, strong animated expressions and enthusiasm, the listener is transported. Probir Da shared some wonderful ways of doing this and much more.
“Slouchy posture, humdrum voice and unenthusiastic approach will never win you a audience leave alone children who are usually more flighty. If you are not comfortable in the role of a storyteller then you are, my dear, not doing justice. You need to be a sincere performer. And as I tell my initiates in the Living Theatre, living itself is a performance. We flit from one role to another.” — Probir Da
True, how many times have we represented our deepest emotions through simplest of gestures? And this performance must not be confused for acting. Faking is easily discernible and the audience—young or old, literate or illiterate can figure that out.
Children specially, if you do not believe in what you are telling then, your young listeners won’t believe it either. — Probir Da
Similarly you can’t perform things you don’t believe in, at least not convincingly. Volunteers were asked to represent things they wanted to say without uttering a word. Still Picture, or performing without words is powerful. Individual volunteers directed their companions to express an idea or a practice that they disliked. Some were very powerful and convincing others realized that they have to be unfettered and committed to their belief. More interestingly, Arpita’s representation of child labor opened a live debate in the room. While her dismissal of the practice was commended, others challenged her to offer an alternative for really needy families. This, as the volunteers realized a little later, was also a method that they could use to initiate debate in their story telling sessions. Probir Da provoked debates with every Still Picture that was performed and the volunteers only realized it on hindsight. A very important tool was learnt — a tool that teaches analysis and introspection against blindly picking up notions.
Bring more than one perspective on board. Resolution is not as important as showing the children that there is always another point of view. And they must thrash out their own conclusions through experience, as nothing is as powerful as experience. — Probir Da
Next, Probir Da demonstrated another one of his powerful storytelling tools —‘The Theatre of Experience’—where the wall between performer and spectator is zilch, the performer is an actor-director who allows his spectator to experience the emotions by making imagined stories palpably real.
Probir Da invited Prakriti for a demonstration. She was asked to close her eyes and then he narrated the story of a queen who imagines that she is being attacked by snakes. While describing the snake, Prabir Da let a scarf slip over her. Blindfolded, Prakriti Di felt a shiver run down her spine but when she opened her eyes she realized the snakes were only imaginary. Prakriti Di experienced fear and then saw it vanish. Not unlike this, children often fear ghosts and perhaps that fuels their interest in ghosts. Often they pester our storytellers to relate a ghost story. But our volunteers have been anxious. Ghost stories can be scary and inane. But as one of our volunteers observed after Probir Da’s demonstration—‘we need to make our ghost stories fun and in the process teach them something valuable’. In fact this process could actually help a child outgrow his fear of ghosts.
Children, unlike adults do not separate the real from the fantastic and that is why this theatre of experience can work like magic with them.
