This year’s Scottish International Storytelling Festival was the first to take place in the new Storytelling Centre on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. One of the world’s first purpose-built venues for storytelling, the Scottish Centre has attracted acclaim at home and wide international interest. So what is the story?

Written by Dr Donald Smith, Director of The Scottish Storytelling Centre

Storytelling is of course an ancient art form, sometimes described as humanity's second oldest mode of entertainment. The Scottish Centre and Festival are part of a contemporary renaissance based on key elements of ancient traditional practice, renewed in modern contexts.

Firstly, the stories are told live, in a very direct form of human communication. In the old Scottish Traveller proverb a story should be told ‘eye to eye, mind to mind, and heart to heart'. The focus is on those core attributes of voice, gesture and facial expression that convey so much about human character and experience.

Secondly, the stories are told without scripts – even mental scripts. Oral storytellers are not actors, though they do use dramatic forms of expression. They are themselves retelling and, to some extent, recreating the tale on each telling. The storyteller holds the shape of the story (its events, sound patterns, verbal phrasing and repetition) in the memory and then re-clothes and animates it through the performance.

Thirdly, audience participation is vital to the happening – the event of storytelling is as much about the telling as the story. If the listeners are not active participants recreating the images, sounds and emotions in their own imaginations, then the vital communication has not taken place. It is the people's art form par excellence and it is this above all that explains its new attraction in our modern technology and time driven culture.

Scotland is rich in older storytelling traditions which have been the conscious inspiration for a contemporary renaissance. The ancient kingdom of Scotland was itself a multi-cultural creation involving Brythonic Celts to the south, majority Picts north of the Forth and Clyde, Irish-Scots to the west and Norse settlers to the far north and west.

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Storytelling Traditions
In all of these cultures there were at least two kinds of oral storytelling. There was a hearthside tradition of folk and fairy tales and a more formal performance tradition designed for the feasting hall and other public ceremonies. The latter might include genealogy and historical lore. Remarkably we have inherited both these traditions as one living art form since, for many centuries, both streams survived through folk culture. This persistence was without official support and often subject to the institutional disapproval of Church, school and state.

One of Scotland's great strengths in the modern storytelling scene is the fact that, despite the pressures of radio, TV and social change, the older traditions survived in rural, island and urban communities. In addition, from the late eighteenth century, Scotland benefited from the systematic collection and preservation of oral traditions.

These collectors included some of our greatest writers such as Burns, Walter Scott and James Hogg; outstanding international folktale collectors such as John Francis Campbell of Islay and Alexander Carmichael; and in the modern era doughty cultural champions such as Hamish Henderson and Calum McLean who co-founded the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University in 1951.

Another vital link in the survival of older forms of storytelling is Scotland's Travelling people. Standing loosely to formal education and literacy, the Travellers retained a full oral culture of music and song and story into modern times. In the late twentieth century, Traveller artists, such as Betsy Whyte, Sheila Stewart, Stanley Robertson, Willie McPhee and Duncan Williamson, came into the wider cultural arena and generously shared their traditions, stimulating a new generation of storytellers.

The transition from folk tradition to contemporary art form was made possible by a dedicated band of enthusiasts who saw the potential for education, environmental interpretation, community health, local heritage and communication skills. So many areas of modern life are crying out for more inspiring, more involving, communication as well as for quality human experiences that unite different generations and interest groups.

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The Scottish International Storytelling Festival
The Scottish International Storytelling Festival began at the Netherbow Arts Centre in 1990. In 1992 a Scottish Storytelling Forum came together to champion oral storytelling and a resource centre was established in 1995, leading eventually to the Scottish Storytelling Centre replacing the former Netherbow building in 2004−06.

As the new Centre opens, the storytellers are part of a new multi-cultural Scotland, and the art of storytelling is opening channels of experience between cultures and faith traditions. At the first international festival in the new Centre, relationships between Scotland and Ireland were explored, celebrating shared traditions, challenging old fault lines and advancing what Scotland and Ireland could together contribute internationally.

The festival attracted visitors from Norway, Canada, Germany, Australia, USA, New Zealand and India as well as strong UK support. Everywhere localities, regions and nations are reconnecting with their own narratives as a social, cultural, economic and spiritual resource.

Designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects, the Scottish Storytelling Centre is a support and resource base for an extensive national storytelling network. This embraces over one hundred professional storytellers, many others who use storytelling in their work, and volunteer activists.

The Centre is also in itself a living demonstration of the many different ways that storytelling can engage people, as well as the power of story to inspire other art forms including literature, film, music, the visual arts and architecture. Located in the heart of Edinburgh's World Heritage Site, the building both draws inspiration from its environment and points people back to the connected narratives of nature, history and human community. These themes are local, national and international, all at once.

Scotland is proud to be part of a creative international response to globalisation, valuing and mutually sharing difference. We are also fortunate that we have something rich and distinctive to share. Praise to the modern visionaries and funders, but even more thanks to successive generations of often anonymous community artists who kept storytelling alive. To quote another old proverb, ‘for your storytelling may heaven be your dwelling.'

About Dr Donald Smith
Donald Smith is the founding Director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The Scottish Storytelling Centre is a partnership between The Church of Scotland and the Scottish Storytelling Forum and, supported financially by The Scottish Arts Council, the City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh & Lothian, and by charitable giving.

Further Information:

Courtesy of Scottish Government - Scotland.org .

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