Tuesday, April 26, 2016

V is for Vasilissa

I’m participating in the A to Z Blog Challenge throughout April.
Monday - something light to start the week. A bit of self-care, creativity challenge or the like.
Tuesday - telling notes for a specific story or kind of story. Tips and tricks to help you think about what you're telling and how.
Wednesday - my usual #tellinglife post, looking at some of the more personal aspects of storytelling and its role in my life.
Thursday - a dip into some of the issues facing contemporary storytelling or a dive into some of the more unusual applications of storytelling.
Friday - my usual personal post about life following the death of my husband
Saturday - the storytelling coach offers a tip you can use right now. An example of the kinds of tools I encourage my students to use.

Oh, I love Vasilissa. This story is arguably the best known of the Baba Yaga tales. It's a Cinderella variant with a somewhat more independent and able heroine. Read the story for yourself here. You can find other great Russian stories and resource material on Karen Chace's blog here.

Some things to consider when telling Vasilissa or other stories like this:

  • How will you retain the connection to the original culture?
  • Who is the real villain? The real heroine? Do you want to depict nuances in these characters or is this telling simpler?
  • Who is your audience? What will they need? 
  • How will you present Baba Yaga? Is she just evil? What about her home with its scaly chicken feet? How will you explain a mortar to people who may not know what one is?
  • How do you pronounce the names correctly?
  • If you're fracturing it, make sure you can tell it straight first.

How do you develop stories from other cultures? What matters to you when you're telling heroic stories? Does the gender of the hero make a difference? I'd love to know!

(c)2016 Laura S. Packer Creative Commons License

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True Stories, Honest Lies by Laura S. Packer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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