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ONCE UPON A TIME...
The following courses (currently not scheduled) can be commissioned by request and tailored to your needs.
Further up & in
Further up and further in
Our world is changing faster than ever. As the human race races forward, are we leaving the human behind? Exponential advances in machine technology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics have led governments around the world to invest heavily in non-biological intelligence, supporting experiments to merge the human body with strong, fast and powerful computers. Some suggest we may even reach immortality in as little as 20-30 years' time.
In this workshop, we will explore the relationship between global challenges, technology and the human imagination -- our capacity to look at any situation from various points of view, making it possible to create, experience and expand the whole world inside the mind. Working and playing with stories, we will explore moral imagination and what makes us truly human, paying attention to human encounters, the mystery of the present moment and the co-creative space between any two or more humans when they gather with a true intention.
Storytelling in education
Restorying Childhood!: an introductory storytelling workshop for all those involved with children 5-11 years old (primary school)
Workshop length: weekend to week-long
For children, listening to stories is not only fun but also addresses an important inner need. Stories are true soul nourishment. They are guides and helpers in the process of making sense of the child's inner feelings and daily experiences. Growing up in a world of mass media and fast digital communication, children today are hungry to listen to fine stories spoken with the integrity, connection, and warmth of the human voice.
Storytelling with children
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helps build literacy skills
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impacts children’s ability to create stories
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develops concentration, love of language and joy of movement
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directly impacts listening and stillness
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strengthens the imagination
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aids confidence and team-building
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This workshop offers an introduction to storytelling for teachers, parents, childminders, carers, librarians and anyone who works with children 5-11 years old.
Storytelling Education
The Right Story at the Right Time
Storytelling for 21st-century children and teenagers (ages 5-18)
Workshop length weekend - one week – 6 weeks
Told in the right way at the right time in the classroom, at home, at cultural and social events, anywhere and everywhere, stories can become guides and helpers, true soul nourishment on the journey from childhood to adulthood.
In this practically based course which can be taught in a modular way
we will explore and learn how to tell the tales that fire the imagination of the child and teenager and learn to use this enlivening and inspiring art that has “told the story” of human experience since the beginning of time.
You will discover how to engage your young audiences in listening and telling stories. Awaken your inner storyteller and create your own stories! The course can include a weekly practice of telling stories for a live audience of children and teens.
Supportive subjects can include felt making, singing, age-appropriate social games and a study of child development with matching story curriculum.
An ideal course for people who work with children- teachers, parents, coaches, and experienced and beginning storytellers who wish to learn the art of 'turning straw into gold'...
This course can also include getting out there in the community telling stories to children in public schools in the local area. When you have completed the course you will not only be prepared to tell stories in many kinds of venues to children and adolescents, but you have done it! You will have planned programs that engage students with storytelling and you will have used songs and movement activities to involve them.
Course Content in more detail:
To strengthen your storytelling:
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Exercises to awaken the storyteller within and strengthen your own imaginative and creative powers.
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Time-honoured methods for learning stories by heart creatively, with ease and confidence.
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How to choose age-appropriate stories for children as they move through developmental milestones.
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How to use the four temperaments and the five senses to enhance and deepen your storytelling.
To awaken the storyteller and story creator within:
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Research on the significance of storytelling as an essential tool in the development of the imagination and of creative thinking which are necessary and required in a wide range of intellectual activities and in problem-solving of all kinds.
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Story creating! How to create stories for specific situations in the lives of children including social inclusion, bullying and teasing, shyness and other forms of challenge and difficulty.
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The structure of archetypal myths that transcends all cultures’ mythologies based on the work of Joseph Campbell.
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How storytelling addresses multiple intelligences and individual learning styles.
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How to educate and heal through your presence as a storyteller creating a sacred space between yourself and the child(ren) in which transformation can occur.
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Presentation of the Waldorf storytelling curriculum and the developmental stages of childhood as a context for choosing age-appropriate stories.
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Why myths, legends, folktales and stories from the world’s cultures are vital to the healthy development of the human psyche
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How to change your telling style to suit various age groups
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How stories address social and behavioral needs and challenges in today’s children
Group and individual coaching to help you improve your storytelling and voice skills
Right
Playing
PLAYING your part! – The storyteller @play.
Workshop length weekend - one week
Social games can be great teachers for us; like good stories, games speak to us on many levels. In the playground there is an alternative world with its own rules and consequences which allows us to meet ourselves and others in new ways. Social games exist all over the world and are currently pushed away by digital communication. It is a part of the vocation of the storyteller to keep the wisdom of such games alive and pass it to future generations. How can we bring the freedom and spirit of play into our daily lives? As storytellers how can being playful affect our relationship with our audience, our characters and ultimately ourselves? This is a workshop for experienced storytellers who would like to develop a more joyful and playful approach to their craft, as well as for teachers, facilitators, public speakers, and parents.
“Work without play is like soup without salt”
Tibetan Proverb
Healthcare
Healthcare and Storytelling
With Medical Doctor Daniela Scaglione, Italy
This weeklong course brings together a medical doctor and a storyteller to support health care professionals in developing tools to hold and promote the healing process.
We will explore how we can work with stories and the imagination, and the paradigm shift introduced by quantum physics, to deepen our understanding of human biology and wellbeing.
The physical revolution that started at the beginning of the last century shows us a vibrational melody underneath what we perceive as “reality”. These new findings deeply change our understanding of the human biology and the human being. Many scientific studies seem to echo what ancient spiritual traditions and myths have whispered since the dawn of time: as if “once upon a time” is actually “once, here and now”. What does this mean for the healing process?
How can stories help us in “breathing” the new paradigm? What if the healing process belonged to the same dimension that stories come from? In this course, we’ll explore some of these new findings in order to develop more tools, as healthcare professionals, in holding and supporting the healing process.
In particular, we’ll focus on:
The role of the observer in the therapeutic process; How energy, information, and coherence are part of the story; Mirror neuron’s function and peripersonal Space’s influence on our body melody; Morphogenic fields and biophotons as the silent language of the invisible realm.
Peripersonal space – the space that immediately surrounds our body, eg. body parts
Morphogenic field – a biofield generating, and organising, the shape in a living system
Biophotons – light radiations produced by a biological system
What the I can see
Portraiture and autobiographical storytelling
With Rachel Miller
Workshop length one week
Here is an invitation for you to embark on a fun, challenging and meaningful artistic adventure.
At the heart of this journey, we will study portraiture by painting a self-portrait. Exploring the many shades and colours of ourselves we will accompany this work with sharing some of our autobiographical experiences and stories with each other, reflecting on, playing with and expanding how we see ourselves and the world. Through struggles, we get to know ourselves better and through knowing ourselves better we get to know the world better. What do we see? What do we miss? How do I move forward when I don’t know what to do? Allowing the discipline of classical portraiture to bring up questions that are ubiquitous within any pursuit of self- knowledge, we will refine our ability to see.
Bring some photos of yourself to work with, don’t worry too much about the quality, even mediocre photos can become exquisite paintings!! We welcome all kinds of creative spirits but No previous experience with storytelling and /or painting is needed.
Whatthe I
Storytelling in palliative care
Workshop length weekend - one week
Each life is a unique story. Working with autobiographical storytelling is a creative doorway into exploring and making sense of our experiences, imagination and inner life.
In this workshop, we will be introduced to working creatively with our personal life experiences.
We will explore ways of crafting our own memories into stories and encouraging others to share their own life tales. Reflecting on exchanging these story gifts leads open a natural way to discuss compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, and understanding.
This is a unique opportunity to learn about personal storytelling and to explore how it might be used as a powerful tool for those working with the dying.
Pallitive
The Courage to Love
Storytelling for transformation of Fear.
Workshop length weekend - one week
What is the true story behind all our fears?
Working around this theme we will explore in playful and profound ways how using the art of storytelling can transform fear in our own lives and in the communities around us.
We welcome with love experienced public speakers and storytellers as well as all those who feel terrified of speaking in public even shorter stories than this one:
”What is love?”
“Love is the total absence of fear,” said the Master.
“What is it we fear?”
“Love,” said the Master.
Courage
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