Behind the Stories of the Storytellers

Storytelling is as old as humanity itself—older even than theater. Tens of thousands of years ago, stories were one of our primary ways of passing on knowledge. And even now, in a world where information is available at lightning speed, stories remain essential. We spoke to a few of the Storytellers, who answered questions about the do's and don'ts and the how and why's.

Phoebe Perry, A Stork Show

Where does the power of a story lie?
The power of a story is that, while it has a directed aim emotionally or with subject matter, it seeps into each person's psyche through a different vein and they have a take away that the teller of the story has no control over.

Does a story always have to be urgent, or can it be found in a small, simple detail?
Ideally the urgent issues are told through small, simple detail. Often when a piece is created to speak about a macro, global, urgent issue they speak in broad generalizations that sound more like a town crier we all tune out. My favorite stories are the ones told so intimately, so microscopic that they inevitably touch on larger issues.

Where do you find the stories you tell?
The stories I tell are often cobbled together from bits and pieces from a character I meet, dialogue I overhear or funny moments that snowball into a bigger story. Most of stories I spend the most time with start with questions that I don't know the answer to -- but I think that might be everyone's starting point.

Phoebe Perry performs The Visitor // A STORK SHOW on Thursday the 2nd of April.

Sahand Sahebdivani and Rasha Hilwi, A Trail of Pomegranate Seeds

Where does the power of a story lie?
As an Iranian and a Palestinian our lives are marked by chaos. Storytelling doesn't change any of this, but it sometimes makes sense of the madness. It offers a sense of hope and imagines a future that is kinder and less broken. It invites us to look at everything from perspectives we didn't consider in our day to day lives. It also invites the stories of two people, who might disagree on vital points, to weave their stories into something harmonious. An intimate process to which the audience is invited.

Does a story always have to be urgent, or can it be found in a small, simple detail?
Storytelling has the power to make the smallest detail feel urgent. There is a beautiful moment in a book by Milan Kundera. A grandmother sees an apple in an orchard. A ladybug flies and lands on the apple. In the far distance some tanks roll into the landscape. From her perspective the tanks are as small as the ladybug. It is also very tiring to only talk about the big urgent issues of the day. Storytelling can offer us a refuge from the big stories.

Where do you find the stories you tell?
As parents of small children (twins who are now turning five) we see life unfold in little tragedies and victories. Eating a plate can feel like a victory, having to go to sleep and not wanting to, a tragedy. When you look through the world through the eyes of one who has recently started observing it, you see stories everywhere. As two artists we take these small stories that don't feel small at all and add them to the absurd stories we experience as two migrants who deal with issues our neighbors don't have to deal with: what does life look like when through geography and history, we don't have access to our dead for a visit? How do we navigate the need to speak four languages in our small Amsterdam apartment, turning a shared breakfast into a UN meeting with translations? Stories come to us every day!

Rasha Hilwi & Sahand Sahebdivani perform A Trail of Pomegranate Seeds on Friday the 21st of April.

Indie Nile, Mental Pillness

Where does the power of a story lie?
The power of a story lies in its ability to make people feel something & move them emotionally. If you like back on your favorite movie, book, song or show, it's always a story that entered your heart first. A good story can have different forms as in conceptual or very clear with a strong middle/beginning/end but it always needs to be rooted in something emotionally true to the storyteller. If it moves me emotionally as a teller then it will definitely move the audience.

Does a story always have to be urgent, or can it be found in a small, simple detail?
I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive. A simple story can also be urgent but the urgency is different. The label 'urgent' is always given to pieces that are politically urgent or stories that discuss issues with very high stakes. And those are very important stories to tell but from the maker's perspective, it always has to be urgent for you. If you don't care about it, there's no point in telling it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the motivation to tell a story is always urgent.

Where do you find the stories you tell?
My stories are always about something I'm trying to make peace with internally. Something that causes me pain that I'm trying to process. Two years ago, I made a show where I played my mother because I needed to make peace with the parts of me that are my mother. Last year, I did a show where I played a drag version of Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman because I wanted to close the sexwork chapter of my life and understand why I was doing that job. This year, I'm playing a version of Britney Spears where I try to free my inner Britney, the part of myself that I've been hiding for so long. You need to come to the show to see what my inner Britney is...and maybe discover your inner Britney that has been silenced for so long.

Indie Nile performs Mental Pillness on Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th of April.