Storytelling Workshop

Every Sunday 12-2pm
Venue: St Marks Church, Myddleton Square, EC1R 1XX, Angel

Please book in advance: Tel: 0794 44 89 527 Email, please use the contact page , contributions for venue hire £6 (£5 conc.)

The workshop is coordinated by Jean Hammond

These weekly workshops are informal, fun way to explore the traditional storytelling and drama as told in the Caravansaries through the Silk Road. No prior knowledge or experience required, please bring stories to share.

The workshop explores the skills required to spontaneously create characters and scenarios. We will be working with a variety of games and structured improvisations. Also practicing with theatrical interpretations of Mullah Nasruddin stories from Rumi, Sufi stories and Arabian Nights. In the Arabian Nights Scheherazade must tell a series of stories to her malevolent husband, King Shahryar, to delay her execution.

Rumi starts his big epic Mathnawi "be-sh'naw în nay chûn shikâyat mê-kon-ad az jodâ'îy-hâ hikâyat mê-kon-ad" (Listen to Ney-reed flute, complaining and telling the story of separation). We will also be relating stories from Rumi discussing ways of relating these stories, also adapting them to a public performance.

A story from Rumi:

Two Friends

A certain person came to the Friend's door and knocked.
"Who's there?"
"It's me."
The Friend answered, "Go away. There's no place for raw meat at this table."

The individual went wandering for a year. Nothing but the fire of separation can change hypocrisy and ego. The person returned completely cooked, walked up and down in front of the Friend's house, gently knocked.
"Who is it?"
"You."
"Please come in, my self, there's no place in this house for two. The doubled end of the thread is not what goes through the eye of the needle. It's a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end, not a big ego-beast with baggage."