by vaishnavi warrier
My mother used to tell me stories with various themes ever since I was a little girl. The reason I remember her very act of storytelling so vividly is because of one thing- how expressive every single line she spoke turned out to be. Looking at how she used to narrate these stories for me, I gradually began to build some of my own and narrate them to her as well. And just like how I used to look at her with wonder, she did so as well, with me being the storyteller now (but I do wish to make one point clear, I do not tell her stories like this anymore, it became something like an ancient form of art for my mother and me which we engaged in a long time ago!).
As I grew up, I started noticing these expressions in various other places other than verbal storytelling- be it a dance performance, a play that I watched, the way a teacher taught me a specific subject at school and so on. And I started to find out that when the spoken word became more demonstrative, I understood the concept in question better. It inspired me to create tales of my own and show people around me what I made as well. The observation I undertook helped me unleash more creativity.
The points above bring in the importance of these expressions in the art of storytelling. For a child sitting in the front row seats of a play, every face that the actor/actress of the same makes and every dialogue the actors speak would be something that makes their eyes go wide open.
Why is that so, you ask? It is because this is how clear the actor wants to be, in conveying to the audience, what they want to say. The eyes going wide open is exactly why expressions are essential everywhere in life.
When I was about five or six years old, I had the opportunity to watch my cousin perform the Narasimha Avatharam Kathakali for a saptaham (collective reading of religious texts, mostly the stories from the Indian epics of the Mahabharata, Ramayana or the Bhagavatham, completed within seven days) event organised at my ancestral home. Apparently, my mother was told that it would be a better idea for her to make me sit a bit at the back as there is a chance sitting in the front row seats could terrify me, with how intense the act could get (the nature of the story being this way). I do not quite recall where I sat, but I was able to feel how emotionally drenched the performance got. After the show, I got to interact with the actor who played Narasimha and I remember being surprised to see him off-character, I took a while to understand that it was the same person who played the ferocious character on stage. And this highlighted how captivating the performance was.
Storytelling, with the characteristics mentioned above helps one, especially children, learn values like empathy and compassion. The wide eyes of the child represent the element of surprise in them, which stems from curiosity. And this curiosity helps the child understand how a character behaves, teaching them what to and not to do. They make the person think about why a character did what they did.
Through elements like abhinaya (or to act), mudras and movements in dance, the audience tries to understand the story which is being portrayed by the dancer. Adding expressions to the way you talk or modulating your voice creates a visible form of energy, a sense of vibration, felt by the person who is being conversed with. Cultivating qualities like these amongst people from an early age will aid in building a more imaginative public with a captivating interest.
And most often, even when the audiences in such creative circles do not quite know what the story is about, the way the performer performs will give them appreciable context to what is happening, and in turn, the audience will walk out of the place having learned something new.
Image courtesy : The story and the song illustrated by Ayswarya Sankaranarayanan
(we dont own copyrights to this image)
