DOMINIC KELLY STORYTELLER. TRADITION, TECHNIQUE AND TRANSFORMATION.

Dominic Kelly is a  Performance Storyteller working within the oral tradition. His powerful and entertaining style has captivated audiences in theatres, festivals and schools across fifteen countries on three continents. 

He directs storytelling performances for Rikscenen, Norway's national folk arts centre and teaches storytelling at Stockholm's Royal College of Music. He has directed storytelling programmes for festivals including Litfest, Larmer Tree Festival and Solfest. He is an associate member of Fabula Storytelling company in Stockholm.   Dominic tours performance pieces for adults and children, directs storytelling performances for major venues, and trains actors and other professionals in storytelling techniques. He has worked at The Barbican, National Theatre, Soho Theatre, Teater Pero, The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, The British Museum and festivals around the world from India to the Arctic Circle.

After meeting with ourselves and Sir John Barrow School, Dominic has begun to develop a programme of sessions that will introduce the schoolchildren to his artform, provide them with storytelling and performance skills and a platform on which to present their work.

Here's Dominic's website, and his ideas for his contribution to our project.
We are very glad to be working Dominic, this looks like a exciting process which will enrich the school and reach beyond it and into the life of the town. 

http://www.dominickelly.eu/





"We will kick off with my giving a storytelling performance for the group so they can firstly just enjoy storytelling and also get a feel for the artform.

The stories I tell them will be short, dynamic folktales that are widely found and great fun to tell. The children will get to choose from amongst these stories the ones that they would like to play with and tell themselves. These traditional tales are so robust, and have been told in so many different ways that they can be changed and adapted and mucked about with so that the children really own them! They will have to the chance to make their own version of their chosen story as if it had happened in Ulverston, pulling into the tale as many bits of local colour and fun as they like.

 This is basically playtime with a story! The children are in charge and can fully allow their creativity to reimagine the story in its new home.

We’ll then open the toolbox of techniques for actually telling the new stories to an audience. We’ll play with stepping in and out of characters, using body language and having fun with our voices to make storytelling as fun and interesting as possible for both the children who are telling and the audience. 
The project will culminate in the children giving storytelling performances of their tales in public."