An online evening course over 4 weeks. This course is now SOLD OUT.
We are living through a unique time and so we thought to bring you a unique opportunity.
Walking the Wildwoods is a three year part-time training course with tradition bearer Shonaleigh Cumbers where students learn the Midrash – a set of storytelling techniques and tools handed down to Shonaleigh by her grandmother that allows story-lovers at all levels of experience to engage deeply with narrative.
At the heart of the course is learning how narrative and story work. In the same way a silversmith must learn the nature of silver and a carpenter must learn the nature of wood, a storyteller must learn the nature of stories – how do they work and how can we work with them?
This is an online introduction to the three year course, giving you a glimpse into some of the exercises, approaches and relationships with story that are built through this brilliant approach to narrative.
Although this is no replacement for face to face learning, this course will introduce you to the nature of story and, hopefully, inspire you to learn with Shonaleigh in the future.
Course overview:
Week 1 – Meet the Midrash
- This week you will be introduced to the Midrash – the method Drut’sylas used to understand the nature of the story they are working with – and begin to learn the nature of the mysterious stuff-we-call-story. We will explore story through Midrash 1, looking at story arc and plot.
Week 2 – Inhabiting The Senses
- This session will give you some tools to open up to the world of story through the five senses. We will work into a story in this way and begin to develop a fuller, multi-dimensional relationship to a narrative.
Week 3 – All the Ps
- This session looks at the four Ps – pitch, pace, plot and pause – and using techniques from Midrash 4, allows us to hone our language skills in service of the story we are telling.
Week 4 – Putting it all together
- The final week of the course will be about mixing it up and letting it go. We will combine the ingredients we have collected and see what story magic we can cook up after our time together.
Week 5 – OPTIONAL PLENARY
- This week is optional for those who would like to have a bit of a recap and space for questions or queries. This is also an opportunity for us to collect feedback on our very first online-course!
Lessons are 8pm – 10pm (Zoom room open from 7:30 for catch-up and questions) on Monday 1st, Monday 8th, Monday 15th, and Monday 22nd June 2020.