Storytelling Workshops by Vikram Sridhar - Online

12th Feb - Ethology in Indian Oral Literature

Right from the Panchatantra to the Jataka tales to the innumerous folktales of the land the story way of teaching sharing and documenting used the animal world immensely. Though today we see them mostly in children’s tales the workshop will explore the philosophy of ethology and connect to the human psychology that these tales inherit. A keen sense of natural observation was inherent in the story makers and using metaphors from the natural world was a common trait. This can come back into our vocabulary if we open the doors to listening to the nature around us.

What will you learn through the workshop:

• The appreciation of animal tales for adults.
• Connecting with the nature around us to brew new tales.
• Create stories that look at our ecosystem more carefully.
• Convey complex human emotions using the lens of animals birds and other living beings
• Creating stories that can travel to another generation

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19th Feb - Every Object Tells A Story

Our Space is surrounded by many things small and big. What if they get a voice to speak?

The workshop will explore the world of objects/materials and the art of play/games to create stories and simple drama in the most impactful ways using the items surrounding us. A stapler for a crocodile charging wire for a skipping rope etc is just a glimpse into the ideas. The workshop will explore the world of simple joys in performing stories using the objects around us.

What will you learn through the workshop:

• The curiosity to look at objects with life
• Connecting with the audience through the medium of a miniature world
• Create stories that are interactive and playful
• Adding life to your performance/sessions/classes
• Hooking the audience/listeners to your narrative

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26th Feb - Know your Antagonist

An engaging workshop to learn and understand the journey of an Antagonist to create interesting stories.While it’s the Protagonist who gets all the credit and the character arc what happens to the Antagonist? Every successful movie book or story works if we can create a strong antagonist. The workshop explores the journey of an Antagonist to make the story screenplay or even the protagonist and the characters in a story relevant.

What will you learn through the workshop:

• Antagonist psyche and Creating a memorable Antagonist
• 360-degree view of the character
• Strengthening your story as a creator
• Adding life to the least heard character
• Moving the story at every juncture

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12th March - Heritage as Stories

An engaging and interactive online workshop to explore how we can look at Heritage as a way to connect to our cultural history and environment through stories. A rich country like India has so many facets to it when we look at it as a rich heritage and not just as history. From Monuments to fauna to food to festivities if we can look at the spectrum of our Culture from the view of heritage and stories we can cherish and celebrate the diversity. Through this workshop, we will look at our rich heritage in different ways and will create stories out of them to connect with our audience/readers/viewers

What will you learn through the workshop:

• Heritage Vs History
• 360-degree view of Indian Heritage
• Connecting to varied strengths of History Geography etc.
• Adding life to the least loved subject for children teens and young Adults
• Facets of Heritage stories and creating memorable stories through the heritage lens 

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19th March - Creating Wordless Stories

What does it take to create a story completely wordless, completely based on sounds and just using our facial muscles. We depend on our vocal vocabulary many times to convey a narrative and especially a story. What if we just have our sounds and our actions to create a story.

The workshop will explore various sound patterns, facial expressions, and simple mime-based exercises

Voice reactions and wordless responses create a narrative that’s completely wordless.

The workshop explores the possibility of sharing stories in ways that transcend our oral vocal vocabulary and tapping our body-based expressions

What will you learn through the workshop:

• Ways to make stories wordless
• Explore age-based adaptation of the same stories
• Awareness towards our body based expressions
• New ways to adapt your existing story bank
• Performing to an audience who don’t connect with vocabulary-based content like specially-abled children, toddlers etc.

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26th March - Singing a Story

Every time we travel across the country or even when we sit with our previous generation, we hear them telling a story. And if we look closer, we hear them singing the story in a way that’s personal, emotional and comes from the heart. What does it take to tell a story, and more than that sing the story.

The workshop will explore a simple way to look at the tone of folk singing, and derive energy from our collective memories to create simple stories in a way that can be sung in both English and our vernacular languages. There would be simple voice-based exercises, improv story creation and the participants will have a story song by the end of the workshop

What will you learn through the workshop:

Shifting from telling to adding a musical tone to a story

Finding comfort with our personal folk voice

Appreciating an ancient tradition of singing stories

Tuning for a story from our authentic memory bank

A new way to work with children and stories

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The workshop will be conducted online on Zoom

About Vikram Sridhar

Vikram Sridhar is an Oral Performance Storyteller and theatre practitioner who specializes in classical stories and believes in storytelling as a strong medium for conservation which is highly relevant in the modern context.

Vikram combines his work and interest in theatre and conservation in his storytelling. Around The Story Tree is his initiative to connect the modern-day listeners to the environment around us through the power of stories through arts.

Tickets once sold won't be refunded.

For any queries, drop us a mail on contact@artkhoj.com