Stories told "eye to eye, mind to mind, heart to heart"

"Not just for children" - festival celebrates the ancient art form of storytelling

Jeeva Raghunath, telling stories: Pic by Ironbark photography

“I think it’s the oldest art form… it’s core to our humanity, it's how we make sense of the world… and I think it’s interesting. I suppose in some ways the more technology focused society becomes the more there’s a hunger to go back to the human way of communicating” said Claire McNicol, professional storyteller, writes Sarah McArthur.

Jeeva Raghunath grew up surrounded by stories: “My grandmother would make us all sit in a large circle, and she would take a nice brass cauldron about that big, add the rice and the curry mix it all up and give it to us like rice balls and we would just eat it from out palms listening to the stories, it was a great experience.” she says. 

With a talent for acting but a problem with memorising, Raghunath assumed performance was not for her, and went into a successful career as a teacher. It wasn’t until she started working in marketing and telling stories as part of book launches that her career as a performance artist took off. She has now travelled from her home in India to 27 countries, as a professional storyteller. She will be returning to Scotland this year to take part in the 35th Scottish International Storytelling Festival. 

Next Friday, the Storytelling Festival will kick off a programme of performances and workshops, based in the Scottish Storytelling Centre with satellite events from Orkney to Dumfries. The performances will mix storytelling with dance, music, visual arts and traditional crafts, and there will be 8 completely new performances commissioned by the festival itself.