Course Instructor: Preeti Das | Co-founder of Mahila Manch
Stories captivate, entertain, and motivate people. However, stories are almost always about celebrating men. Women characters in most stories are there only to take the “male narrative” forward. To redress this imbalance, the course aims at identifying and performing stories of Indian women: queens, dancers, teachers, scientists, bankers, rock stars, actors, village heads, dacoits, sports persons, mothers, and grandmothers.
The course will take the participants through finding and choosing a story, shaping and distilling it into a tight script, and then applying stagecraft and presentation skills. In this course, the participants will be offered writing and performance tips and illustrated examples to assist them in developing their stories.
Course Contents:
Introduction to storytelling's styles, mechanics, and craft in an experiential, supportive environment.
The process of weaving language into a concrete narrative to create rich, believable experiences.
We are tying together character and plot, resulting in stories that metaphorise the human experience.
'Art of Proactive Listening', which is crucial to drawing out exciting stories from other people and a skill that can be life-changing when applied to personal relationships.
Explore other/lesser-known narratives of women. Identify women characters/stories from India. The students will be exposed to stories of Induben Khakrawala (the khakra queen of India) or told to choose characters like M.S. Subbalakshmi and others. Once the lead characters are chosen, the participants will be encouraged to write their story using creative liberties.
Experiment with context, genre, and tone, playing with characters and perspectives to trigger emotional responses from the audience. The stories will have to be performed using various forms of storytelling that will be taught during the course.