The Chennai Storytelling Festival 2024, held in February this year, was an enormous success! It attracted more than 100 storytellers, and hundreds more storytelling aficionados, from around the globe. The event, which occurred fully via videoconferencing, was masterminded by an American settled in Chennai. Yes, I am talking about Dr. Eric Miller who is a big name in the world of storytelling. A man who is responsible for training hundreds of storytellers in India.
Dr. Eric
Miller is a native New Yorker and earned a Ph.D. in Folklore from the
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). He has taught college courses in
Folklore, Expository Writing, Creative Writing, Analysing Literature, Public
Speaking, and Storytelling at St. John’s University, Fordham University, and
New York University (all in NYC). In Chennai, he has taught at IIT-Madras; the
Image College of Animation, Arts, and Technology; and the University of Madras
(Dept of Communication and Journalism). In 2007 Eric co-founded the World
Storytelling Institute, which he directs. He also directs the annual Chennai
Storytelling Festival, which began in 2013.
When I asked
Dr. Eric what made him choose storytelling as a profession, he replied,
“Since my
father was a playwright and a theatre critic, I used to visit the theatre
often. I naturally became fascinated with drama and as a teenager wrote several
plays. Then at the age of 17 years, I met Laura Simms, who was a Professional
Storyteller. I learned about Professional Storytelling from her. Storytelling
appeared easier than theatre! Storytelling seemed to me to be a kind of theatre
in which one could be all-in-one – playwright, director, and actor – and there
was no need for a stage, sets, a full cast of actors, costumes, and makeup. I
also liked the crystalline structure of fairytales, as I learned about them
from Laura Simms.”
Why India and
why Chennai?
“Both my
parents were in the fields of the Arts, and Arts Journalism (my mother was the editor-in-chief
of a national magazine about dance when I was growing up). As a result, in my
late teens, I decided to study story and the performing arts in an ancient
culture. My options came down to Ireland or India. I chose India as it was
further away and not as modernized. I also chose India as I was interested in
Goddess Culture, not as religion, but as culture and as models for behavior. A
Professor of religion at the College I was attending handed me an English
translation of the Silappathikaram (the Epic of the Ankle Bracelet), written by
Prince Ilango Adigal. This version of the story is linguistically dated to have
been written in Tamil 1500 years ago. I read the story and liked it very much.
The content of the story – one woman who would go to a King and present her
case and the King would listen to her – amazed me!
I first came
to India in 1988, to do research for my Master’s degree. At that time I went to
Poompuhar, the place Kannagi grew up, and walked the same path as Kannagi, from
Poompuhar to Madurai, around 200km, and then later from Madurai to the
mountains, another 200km. I authored a book about the walk and gave the first
copy to M. Karunanidhi, the 5-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. I came back to
India in 2002 to do research with Tribal people in the Anaimalai mountains for
my Ph.D. in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. After that, I decided
to settle in Chennai.”
Dr. Eric was
lucky to find his spouse Magdalene in Chennai. Magdalene is a Therapist
specialising in using Drama and the other Arts for Therapy. Eric and Magdalene
were married in 2006 and have a daughter Kamala, who is now 17 years old. Along
with Magdalene and Storyteller Jeeva Raghunath, he started the World
Storytelling Institute in 2007. He started offering Storytelling Workshops from
then on. Today there are 58 registered Professional Storytellers in
Chennai, many of whom have studied with Dr. Eric.
Apart from
Chennai, Dr. Eric has helped to start Storytelling Associations in Trichy,
Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, and Ahmedabad.
In 2011, he
and Geeta Ramanujam (the senior leader of the Storytelling Revival in India)
started the Indian Storytelling Network. Dr. Eric assists the 130 members of
the ISN in editing and updating their ISN listings (which include their
bio-data and descriptions of storytelling-related services they offer to the
public).
Dr. Eric
says, “Storytelling is not just a performance. It is also a secular ritual in
which people get in touch with themselves, others, and the Universe. I conduct
workshops in telling stories such as folktales, fairytales (one kind of
folktale), epics, legends, and myths – as well as personal-experience stories,
and stories that I help people create. As I see it, role play is an
important part of storytelling. By speaking and moving as a character would,
and addressing listeners as if they were other characters in the story, the
storyteller enlists the audience to participate in the story. I believe
storytellers should not overact. They should be gentle, invite the listeners
in, and activate their imaginations. The style I work with is conversational.
We don’t memorize, we make eye contact at times, and we tell from our
imagination. It is a visual experience – the teller and the listener can
visualise a story as it is being told. This way a storyteller can bring a story
to life”.
Based on a
suggestion from a Chennai-based storyteller Sandhya Ruben, who had attended a
storytelling festival in Singapore, he started the Chennai Storytelling
Festival in 2013. He was familiar with Storytelling Festivals, having assisted
Laura Simms organize them in NYC. From the start, the Chennai
Storytelling Festival was positioned as a Teaching and Learning Storytelling
Festival. For the first 8 years, the CSF occurred almost in person.
Dr. Eric has
been fascinated with and has been an enthusiastic user of, videoconferencing
since the mid-1990s. Since around that time, his website has been
www.storytellingandvideoconferencing.com. When the pandemic hit in March 2020,
he was ready to shift all his storytelling activities into videoconferencing
mode. Post the pandemic, CSF sessions have included a few hybrid sessions, with
a mix of live and online participants.
Videoconferencing
has allowed storytellers from around the globe, along with storytellers
throughout India, to participate in the CSF. There are participants from
Russia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Australia, New
Zealand, and beyond who are interested in sharing and learning storytelling
best practices. All sessions in the editions of CSF from 2021 to 2024 have been
free of charge!
The theme for
Chennai Storytelling Festival 2024 was Growing and Maturing through
Storytelling and will include Transforming in CSF 2025. On the recommendation
of several members of the Chennai Storytellers group (of which Dr. Eric is also
a member), CSF 2024 had a few sessions of storytelling by and for children. Dr.
Eric says this was a new and wonderful experience! CSF 2024 also included a
discussion session on ways the Dravidian Movement has used stories to
communicate its messages, especially through drama, modified folk art forms,
movies, novels, and short stories.
Sudha
Umashanker, a journalist, author, storytelling student of Dr. Eric, and an
active participant in all of the editions of the Chennai Storytelling
Festival, curates a Tamil storytelling event as one of the regional
language storytelling events that occurs in the CSF. On Sunday 11th February
2024 her storytelling outfit, Storycorner at Bookmine, hosted the eighth
edition of "Tamizhil Kathaigal Ketpom" ("Let's Listen to Stories
in Tamizh"), via Zoom. This popular event has a faithful following of
young and old. Eleven Storytellers presented a wide range of stories in a
variety of styles in "Tamizhil Kathaigal Ketpom" in CSF 2024.
Commenting on
CSF 2024 Sudha says, “Big names such as Laura Simms, mentor of Dr. Eric Miller, delighted
participants with workshops and performances. Chennai Storytellers Pretigaya
Haran of Story Sack, and Sheetal Rayathatha of Square Heads, doubled as hosts
of the Festival's 12 two-hour Storytelling Sessions. Hundreds of man-hours
spent on emails, short-listing workshop leaders, curating events, and drawing
up schedules for 4 different time zones –a facet that was well-appreciated –
culminated in a memorable Festival. Takeaways included great networking from
right where you are, lots of new ideas and new stories to discover, and
exposure to a variety of narrative styles – this and much more was what Chennai Storytelling Festival 2024 was all about”.
When I
asked Dr. Eric about his future plans apart from curating the CSF, he mentioned
several things. He said he will continue to give training in Storytelling,
Creative Writing, and Storytelling Therapy, a field he has helped to pioneer
(he earned a Master's degree in Psychology from the University of Madras in
2018). He will also continue to host the "First Monday of the Month"
sessions of storytelling by and for adults (May to January) which are also free
to participate in and observe (via Zoom). There are more than 200 video
recordings of storytelling in this series uploaded on YouTube. He is also the
Dean of Rojavanam International School in Nagercoil and visits there for some
days each month.
Dr. Eric has
scripted a fictional movie with singing and dancing entitled “Words From the
Forest”, which is about a group of high school students from New York City who
come to visit some Tribal people in Tamil Nadu's Anaimalai Mountains. He says
this story takes up where the story of Kannagi leaves off, and he hopes “Words
From the Forest” will soon be brought to the silver screen.
Let us wish
Dr. Eric success in this ambitious project. He can be contacted at eric@storytellinginstitute.org
This story has appeared
in the Madras musings issue dated March 15-31 March 24
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