A THREE-DAY Mumbai International Storytelling Festival 2023, Gaatha, began at Somaiya Vidyavihar University (SVU) campus on Friday evening. Dan Yashinsky, a Canadian story-teller of world-repute, who has been an integral part of story-telling festivals held across countries, inaugurated the first of such festivals in Mumbai.
A collaboration between Mumbai Storytellers Society (MSS) and SVU, this one-of-its-kind festival aims at celebrating the ancient tradition of oral storytelling with workshops, talks and panel discussions, informing participants about nuances of the art of storytelling, apart from the obvious story-telling sessions.
Director of the festival Usha Venkatraman said school and college students along with professional story-tellers, Indian and international, will take part in Gaatha. She said, “The festival preview includes a story-telling competition wherein 19 enthusiastic children from nine schools told their stories. Of these the best six will perform at the festival. There are also discussions on story-telling with college students. We have 250 college students working as volunteers. After all, when the purpose is to preserve and revive the oral storytelling tradition, youth involvement is a must.”
A total of 63 storytellers will tell their stories in six Indian languages, along with three international story-tellers. Some featured story-tellers include Dan Yashinsky; Sita Brand –a storyteller, actor, director and founder of Settle Stories; Salil Mukhiya Koitso – member of the international storytelling network and founder of Acoustic Traditional and India’s first Festival of Indigenous Storytellers; storyteller and children’s author Tanya Batt; Anand Neelakantan –Indian author columnist screenwriter and public speaker, among others.
The festival Chair Amrita Somaiya said, “In today’s digital world, we see stories everywhere– from Instagram stories to Facebook stories and many such platforms. The young generation is already engaged in a new format of story-telling and are aware of their importance. Gaatha is an attempt to reintroduce them to the old tradition of oral story-telling, which has been a source of transmission of knowledge for centuries. If not an annual event, we hope to make it a festival to look out for, once in two years.”
Adding to this, Samir Somaiya, Chancellor of SVU, said, “We hope to continue it as a periodical event. This is just the first year.” Stories will be told at the festival via various forms. Apart from regular story-telling, the festival sees narration of stories through dance, music, theatre and art, as various story-tellers find their unique way of bringing their stories to the audience.
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