Thanks to Adam Sargant’s project to make a crowd-funded DVD documentary about drut’syla storytelling – working title The Last Drut’syla? – Shonaleigh now has a presence on Soundcloud. Here she is, telling the story of Ruth and the Wind, part of the Ruby Tree cycle, and explaining a bit about the background of drut’syla storytelling to friends and acquaintances at Haworth Old Hall, on 16th March, for Haworth Storytelling Circle. The Last Drut’syla project has a blog here and a Facebook page here – have a rummage, spread the word and consider contributing to this amazing project – a feature-length documentary of a centuries-old storytelling tradition, never before recorded in any form.
Simon Heywood meanwhile presented a TEDx talk at Reading University on Missing the Arrow: the Search for the Truly Great Storyteller. The title is a reference to an old Jewish folktale and the talk used drut’syla storytelling as an example. He also gave a conference paper related to the drut’syla tradition to the Connecting Communities conference organised by the Pararchive Project at Leeds University on 28th March. In this technological age, how can we use technology to preserve and share oral traditions? What are the risks? Here’s the powerpoint, uploaded and ready to go. We’ll upload content from both conferences when it comes up.
Across the Bridge and Into the World 