We went to two evenings of storytelling. Both were held on hot summer nights. Both were at restaurants where every chair was taken long before the performance began. Both were made possible through the efforts of volunteers.
One was sponsored by T.A.L.E.S., The Alberta League Encouraging Storytelling. The other was sponsored by Story Slam. TALES had three tellers telling fifteen minutes each with each teller booking a spot well in advance. Stories could be original or credited and told with permission, but they had to be told and not read. All three tellers were female. Each guest paid $5.00 and the pot was divided among the tellers.
Story Slam allowed eleven tellers to sign up at 7:00 for an 8:00 start. Each read a self-authored five-minute story. Five judges were recruited from the audience and asked to give a numeric rating to each teller without being given any rules for judging. Stories lost points for each ten-second increment over the five-minute limit. Donations were solicited from the audience and the winner received the full donation pot. Eight of eleven tellers were male.
The read stories contained many more words than the told stories. Although the audiences shared a few common members, for the most part they were entirely different.
There are some interesting questions here for anybody studying story. Are males more financially competitive than females? Do females find it easier than males to tell stories without reading? Are males more likely than females to present their self-authored stories for public judgment?
Both TALES and Story Slam sponsor restaurant events on a monthly basis in Edmonton. If you are going to get a seat at these events, you pretty much have to be prepared to arrive early and pay for dinner at the restaurant. Though there are definite differences, a choice in terms of personal preferences, there seems little doubt that storytelling and listening is a form of entertainment that Edmontonians are embracing.
No comments:
Post a Comment