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Author
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Comment
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Jessica Evershed
Unregistered User
(4/3/03 5:59 am)
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Interactive Narrative
I wonder if anyone can give information on/ recommend further reading, on the subject of interactive narrative in relation to the genesis and evolution of early storytelling and folk tales.
I am a postgraduate student (Interactive Multimedia) writing a dissertation on the relationship between types of early narrative (pre widespread reading of printed fiction and cinema - where a story is 'frozen') and the ways of imparting information used in 'new' interactive multimedia.
Early forms of communication narrative such as the telling of folktales and oral history, Elizabethan drama, and Commedia Dell'Arte, incorporated a large element of fluidity and interaction on the part of the 'audience'. This seems to have a parallel with the way 'new' interactive mediums engage and involve their audience.
Does anyone have a view on this, or can anyone tell me about how a listener to an early fairy tale may have interacted with the teller. Would there be an element of tailoring to the audience involved (as in Shakespearean theatre, where the audience sometimes demanded a different ending to the play - or different play), and how much would an individual have felt able to embroider on the basic tale they were telling.
How would the physical telling of the tale be done - 'around the camp fire' as one imagines, or in a room with many people, or on a one-to one-basis. I presume there was no formal way of doing these things, but would like to know if there was.
Any ideas, I'd be very interested, Thanks
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Midori
Unregistered User
(4/4/03 6:09 am)
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Performance
Yes, this is a great subject! I would strongly urge to have a look at Harold Scheub's work--particularly his book "Story"--which is a discussion of South African storytelling--including really fascinating ideas on non verbal aspects of performance and the relationship of the audience to the performance of story. There is a lot of work done on this subject in African oral narrative traditions--but Scheub is really a great place to start.
For Scheub the performance (not those words that appear on the page--a pale skeleton at best of the story) is the story. The interaction between performer and audience--the techniques by which a performer engages an audience, takes the same story and subtly alters it to reach the greater number of listeners--Scheub argues that for an audience who has heard these same stories many times--the performance is almost a collective ritual--in which the audience responds to the images, the gestures, the performer's voice as she physically, verbally collaborates with the audience to "shape" their experience . He discusses too how those performances are altered, depending on the audience--a tale of rites of passage when told to young women undergoing those rites is delivered with a different kind of intensity and body language and response than the same tale told among a group of very much older women, for whom this is a more intense intellectual understanding of a past event in their life. You might also try just referencing "Nonverbal Aspects of performance" in a university search engine like EBSCO...I'm sure you will find a wide range of articles.
Consider too--that in a story telling community--very often the performer is a member of the audience at other times--rather than say a professional (such as an actor in the Commedia). So there is a greart deal of intimate knowledge between storyteller and audience--which also allows for a story teller to build her perofrmance, draw in her audience even closer with details that she knows will "zing" certain members of the audience. Again...Scheub is really great on this.
As for the Commedia dell'Arte--I love to watch these performances--the same play--but always delivered with new quirks to keep an audience engaged. I saw a performance in Venice in which the actors delivered their lines in a rotating Italian, English, French and German...to accomadate the crowds that had come for Carnevale.
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