Report of meeting and workshop in Rome
27th September — 02" October2011
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH
3PM — 6PM MEETING — ORGANIZERS / TUTORS
In this first meeting all trainers and people responsible for the organizations involved in the Project went together through the application form of the Project they presented and discussed face to face about each point and decided how to best put into practice their project. All trainers went through the details of the workshops, focusing in particular on the first one taking place in Rome in the following days. All countries had one/two trainers and they decided that each of them would look after a session of the training, while everybody else, including the other trainers will act as trainees during the session run by the collegues. A series of practical exercises to check the actual level of the trainees and create a good atmosphere of team work had also been planned. The issue of using English as common communication language has also been raised, with particular attention to provide translations for trainees not having a good level of English. Being one of the main focuses of the project the exploration of the possibilities for multicultural and multilingual storytelling projects, all trainers agreed on the fact that the Project will also represent a good occasion for the trainees to improve their English and to understand and learn other languages at a basic level.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 28TH
10AM — 1PM WORKSHOP
Presentation of the Programme to the trainees Exercises of self introduction and ice breaking using English and all the languages of the countries involved lead by Paola Balbi and Davide Bardi from Italian group Physical warm up run by Davide Bardi from Italian group Voice exercises run by Agnieska Ayem Kaim and Katarzyna Enemuo from Polish group Round of feedback form the whole group Story told by David Ambrose by Welsh group, to be used as rough material for the following exercises Storytelling and focus exercise run by Sylvia Venizelea and Georgios Evgenikos from Greek group
2PM — 5PM WORKSHOP
2PM — 5PM WORKSHOP
Afternoon warm up and rhythm exercises run by Kersti Stabi from Swedish group Story told by David Ambrose by Welsh group, to use a rough material for the following exercises. The trainees are divided into three groups and given the task of creating a short performance on the given story, using all the languages present in each group and making the story comprehensible for an international audience.
Each group works for an hour on the story and the trainers are available for advice or to solve comprehension problems, then the three groups come back together and show to everyone the results of their research. A long discussion takes place, with questions and answers about problems and difficulties found in each group, and many proposals are thrown on the table as suggestions to work on during the following day.
5PM — 6PM MEETING
After the workshop the trainers and organizers meet again for a brief feed-back session and discussion about the following day and they decide to focus part of the work on experimenting several different ways of translating stories from one language to another and on the use of body language as a tool to facilitate international storytelling.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 29TH
10AM — 1PM WORKSHOP
The Italian group leads a warm up session run by Davide Bardi with the help of Chiara Visca, focusing on how to create and tell a short story with the only use of body language and "sound effects". Paola Balbi steps in and keep the ball rolling by suggesting a series of storytelling exercises to develop self confidence in storytelling, raise the teller's awareness about his/her own physical and spiritual skills and introduce the importance of "the art of praising" in storytelling: how to praise a character, how to praise a story, how to praise the audience and how to make the audience praise you as a storyteller. Michael Harvey from Welsh group takes over and tells the whole group a new story to work on, leaving on open ending. The trainees are then divided into five smaller groups and asked to work on the translation and retelling of the story in their several languages. This time the task is not to create a multilingual perfomiance, but a simultaneous performance in several different languages. They are advised to concentrate on one specific session of the story or to create the story end, rather than on the whole story. They work for 45 minutes and each group includes a trainer to facilitate the work.
Each group works for an hour on the story and the trainers are available for advice or to solve comprehension problems, then the three groups come back together and show to everyone the results of their research. A long discussion takes place, with questions and answers about problems and difficulties found in each group, and many proposals are thrown on the table as suggestions to work on during the following day.
5PM — 6PM MEETING
After the workshop the trainers and organizers meet again for a brief feed-back session and discussion about the following day and they decide to focus part of the work on experimenting several different ways of translating stories from one language to another and on the use of body language as a tool to facilitate international storytelling.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 29TH
10AM — 1PM WORKSHOP
The Italian group leads a warm up session run by Davide Bardi with the help of Chiara Visca, focusing on how to create and tell a short story with the only use of body language and "sound effects". Paola Balbi steps in and keep the ball rolling by suggesting a series of storytelling exercises to develop self confidence in storytelling, raise the teller's awareness about his/her own physical and spiritual skills and introduce the importance of "the art of praising" in storytelling: how to praise a character, how to praise a story, how to praise the audience and how to make the audience praise you as a storyteller. Michael Harvey from Welsh group takes over and tells the whole group a new story to work on, leaving on open ending. The trainees are then divided into five smaller groups and asked to work on the translation and retelling of the story in their several languages. This time the task is not to create a multilingual perfomiance, but a simultaneous performance in several different languages. They are advised to concentrate on one specific session of the story or to create the story end, rather than on the whole story. They work for 45 minutes and each group includes a trainer to facilitate the work.
2PM — 5PM WORKSHOP
The afternoon starts with an energizing warm up run by Sylvia Venezelea, Georgios Evgenikos and a short singing session run by Kersti Stabi. The whole group gathers in a semicircle and the trainees are requested to show the result of the work done on the given story in the morning. All the presentations show an impressive improvement in respect to the work done in the previous day and the level of their team work seems much better. The presentations are followed by a feedback session about the difficulties found in using different languages in the same performance and the question is raised whether it is better to translate or create a multilingual story. Everyone agrees that the goal should always remain to make the story interesting and comprehensible for the audience, whatever the chosen languages and considering that the use of different languages and translations always make a story longer than the original. After the session everyone is asked to share with everyone some thoughts about the tools and skills learned during the workshop and to give some suggestion for the future meetings. Martina Rigoni and Nausicaa Kapsala are proposed by the Italian organization Raccontamiunastoria, which runs "Festival Intemazionale di Storytelling" to present a multilingual performance using English, Italian and Greek for the special event "Fashion Storytelling" scheduled in the Festival for the following evening. They will tell a 15 minutes version of the Greek myth "Zeus and Leda".
5PM — 6PM MEETING — ORGANIZERS / TUTORS
This first workshop experience has been evaluated very positively by the trainers and organizers and they discuss about how to make the best use of the experience gained in the past two days. A debate rises about the use of English as main communication language and whether all the trainers should have at least a basic level of conversational English to take part in the project. People express different ideas about this matter and eventually they agree on the utility of knowing at least basic English to work in groups and exchange ideas among trainees, but also on having a go trying some exercise without using English on some specific meetings where trainees that don't speak English at all will be present. All the dates for the following meetings are communicated and travel and accommodation details discussed. A schedule for the next meeting and workshop in Poland is planned and approved by everyone.
FRIDAY SEPMBER 30TH
9PM — 11PM FASHION STORYTELLING SPECIAL EVENT
The trainees Martina Rigoni (Italy) and Nausicaa Kapsala present their story of "Zeus and Leda", collaborating with jewellery designer Marco Magro, body painter Veronica Baleani and model Sara Pantaleo. The performance TEis judged by audience and press utterly successful and recorded by Italian National TV Rai 3.
SATURDAY OCTOBER 1ST AND SUNDAY OCTOBER 2
" Tutors and trainees attend the 3"d edition of "Festival Internazionale di Storytelling Raccontamiunastoria"
