Oral Storytelling: Negotiating Text, Performance, and the Porous Story

In Singapore, the Storytellers' Circle (STC), a special interest group of the Society for Reading and Literacy (SRL), meets regularly. Run by volunteers, the SRL has been around since 1985 and actively promotes reading and literacy in Singapore. The STC began in 1999. Over the years the monthly STC meetings have been hosted at homes, libraries and dedicated arts centers. After casual conversation and official announcements, members take turns telling stories in the oral tradition. There are many definitions for oral storytelling. In America, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) states, "Storytelling is not the same as reading a story aloud, reciting a piece from memory, or acting out a drama... The storyteller looks into the eyes of the audience, uses his or her own words, and together they compose the tale." In our practice, a story can be told to just one other person in a casual setting, or presented more formally as live performance art with larger audiences. The stories range from retellings of well-known folktales to personal anecdotes and original stories shaped and colored by the experiences of everyone present. As NCTE offers, "The experience can be profound, exercising the thinking and touching the emotions of both teller and listener." I concur.

Starting with the STC, a small but significant group working in the oral tradition in Singapore has built up some expertise and set up the Storytelling Association (Singapore). The Asian Storytelling Network, a storytelling company that I run, is recognized by the National Arts Council. Yet despite this, and the fact that storytellers from around the world have gathered in Singapore regularly since the year 2000, for the Asian Congress of Storytellers and the Singapore International Storytelling Festival organized by the National Book Development Council of Singapore, it takes some newcomers several months to appreciate the difference between reading aloud and oral storytelling. This is evident when they take a turn to tell a story, for they often turn to a children's book and read it aloud, recite or retell the tale. It could be any book randomly picked from the shelf, but books that are popular include The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, or Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly by Pam Adams is another favorite. Those more confident about their ability to remember the plot turn to classics from different literary traditions including Tolstoy, Guy de Maupassant and O Henry. In fact, after some minor attempts, my own first significant "telling" at the STC years ago, was a recitation of Cat You Better Come Home by Garrison Keillor. However, when asked to present it more formally later, I panicked about copyright issues before writing in to seek permission. At a workshop in Sydney in 2012, I was reassured when American storyteller Connie Regan-Blake said her own introduction into storytelling about 40 years ago began with children's books by Don Freeman and Maurice Sendak.

Thus, over the years, I have found that to be able to shed the skin of a scholar and share a story as a human being can be a daunting step for many new to oral storytelling, especially so for those who have grown up in educational environments that favour the written text (the measurable) over the oral or other multisensory artistic forms. Professional storytellers must find their own voice and consider copyright issues, but there still lingers the misconception among many in education that storytelling is limited to reading aloud. Because of the heavy emphasis on language instruction in the early years many educators also feel that, if the language skills of the "storyteller" are uncertain or unquantifiable as may be the case with volunteers or some teachers-in-training in multilingual environments, the only form of storytelling they can justifiably recommend is "reading aloud."

I now work with story in many forms. I volunteer extensively in the areas of reading and literacy, have led the STC for more than ten years and work as a...