Storyknowing Festival and Symposium at York Theatre Royal
Two-day event exploring storytelling with young people showcases new models of collaboration between theatres and universities
Cath Heinemeyer, Storyknowing coordinator, leads a storytelling workshop at York Theatre Royal
After a £6m redevelopment project lasting over a year, York Theatre Royal will host an innovative ‘Storyknowing’ Festival and Symposium as part of its reopening weekend on 22–23 April 2016. The project will explore the relationship between storytelling and adolescence, and will feature contributions by researchers from York St John University and other institutions, as well as storytellers, theatre practitioners and young people.
The interdisciplinary project has been organised by the International Centre for Arts and Narrative (ICAN), a practice-based research collaboration between the theatre and York St John University. ‘Storyknowing’ aims to showcase new and productive ways in which theatres and research institutions can work together to develop participative arts practice.
The symposium, the first of its kind at the theatre and University, will benefit from the input of professionals and young people from a wide variety of backgrounds, ranging from researchers in theatre, education and psychology to mental health professionals, teachers, arts practitioners and young people.
Storyknowing will feature presentations and performances which demonstrate how telling and listening to stories can make a difference to young people’s lives. Two Friday morning panels, ‘Storytelling In and Out of Education’ and ‘Storytelling for Resistance and Resilience’, will be followed by an evening of storytelling performances by and for young people, including a story told through Indian dance and a retelling of the classical myth Dido and Aeneas, set amid the current refugee crisis.
Keynote performances by acclaimed storytellers Roger Hill and Jo Blake Cave will also feature, as well as workshops exploring the use of stories in schools, in mental health settings, or with profoundly disabled young people.
The Storyknowing project is coordinated by ICAN PhD student Cath Heinemeyer, whose research into storytelling with adolescents is funded by a collaborative doctoral award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Cath said:
“Storyknowing is about bringing together the best research and storytelling practice with young people – but it is also going to be an innovative research activity in itself. To generate new perspectives on how young people use story, we need a dialogue which includes the expertise of researchers, teachers, arts practitioners, mental health professionals and teenagers themselves. And that dialogue cannot just be conducted through research talks – performance and practice workshops will allow us to find out ‘what story knows’ about this interface.”
The ICAN partnership was established in 2012 to investigate the role of narrative across art forms in community settings. The Centre is jointly run by Matthew Reason, Professor of Theatre and Performance at York St John University, and Juliet Forster, Associate Director at York Theatre Royal. It has worked with almost 1,000 workshop participants of all ages and backgrounds since its launch.
Juliet Forster said:
“York Theatre Royal’s mission is ‘to cultivate the potential of the community through the creative arts’ and this goes to the heart of what ICAN and Storyknowing are about. We know that young people are facing unprecedented challenges – in a competitive educational world, and increasingly in the area of mental health – and we want to support all those working with them to harness the power of narrative and the arts.”
Matthew Reason said:
“Storyknowing is that quality of understanding we have while within a narrative, when we intuitively ‘get’ what is at stake in terms of relationships or consequences or emotions. Yet the moment we exit the story and try and say what it is we know, we are oddly lost for words.
“We are interested in developing storytelling as a participatory practice – one that really embraces the notion that we are all storytellers – through working with groups and individuals from across the community. It is a space where a theatre and a university operate within their wider community and context, making art together, asking questions together, telling stories together.”
The Storyknowing Festival and Symposium runs all day on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 April, with events taking place at York Theatre Royal and York St John University. Parallel workshops for young people let teachers bring interested students, at a minimal contribution to cost, to provide them with a vivid and creative experience of the research environment.