Another Storytelling Contest

Ooops. I did it again. I judged another storytelling contest. This one was sponsored by Lampara Books in partnership with PETA. It was held during the 2014 MIBF.

I'm sharing a comment I posted on Jack Javier's FB post regarding a photo of the winner in Category A. Apparently, his mother was the coach of Chelsea, the student who won first place. Chelsea is studying in Comembo Elementary School.

Chelsea, was my 1st choice. 

She has a solid and comforting voice. I hope she learns how to control it as she grows up and become a good storyteller, performer or a public speaker in the future. She appeared relaxed and comfortable telling the story. Thus, her actions were not a nuisance to her performance, rather, it enriched the telling. 

She can do a lot with her voice. I closed my eyes for a few mins during her performance and I could see an image  of Nanay, haggard but happy being superhuman. This is one way of telling how effective the storytelling is- when listening to a storyteller would elicit images that connects the listener to the story being told. We've grown too accustomed to visual images when in fact, before TV and the Internet, we had the radio. And before that, we had oral literature. And in this tradition, storytelling is meant to make people LISTEN. When we listen, we are SILENT for a while so that, we can use our brains to imagine, to see images using our minds and to allow another person, in this instance, the storyteller to affect us. 

I hope teachers and coaches of storytelling remember this value of storytelling as an oral and aural tradition. And lastly, when we allow another person to affect us, we learn to trust. We build compassion. See how powerful storytelling can be?