6 Captivating Storytelling Techniques from Around the Globe
Our storytelling traditions are the living legacies that we can pass on to future generations.
I have always been interested in literature, arts, and culture. I love reading stories of distinct characters, places, and unique traditions from all over the world. I guess I’m not the only one who feels this way. After all, stories fascinate people.
Storytelling is as ancient as the earliest history of man. Early civilizations have used storytelling as a social and cultural activity to entertain, educate, and teach moral values. However, the most noted importance of storytelling is how it becomes an effective medium for cultural preservation.
Although storytelling traditions and how stories are told around the world predate writing, cultures around the globe have successfully preserved some of its most valuable stories because of its unique ability to be passed from generation to generation.
Stories from many ancient cultures have evolved and survived because of man’s ingenuity to improvise and use different techniques to tell their stories. Stories are told in different ways and various forms, often serving as a unique cultural identity.
Unique Storytelling Techniques
Most often, stories from various cultures depict their beliefs, practices, and religion. Storytelling has been the means to continue cultural traditions and ensure that it will be passed to future generations.
Due to technological advancements, there is a pressing need to preserve storytelling’s ancient heritage as a useful instrument of cultural transmission.
Here are some of the storytelling techniques from around the world that reflect unique cultural traditions.
1. Hula
Hula is a Polynesian tradition of storytelling. Although popularly known to be a dance, this storytelling technique represents rich Hawaiian culture and history.
The Hula dance signifies different aspects of important events in Polynesian history. Dance motions are interpreted as movements of nature, such as blowing of the wind or the ocean waves. However, movements can also signify feelings and emotions.
The Hula also tells traditional stories about myths, the creation, and the Polynesian gods and goddesses often told to pass on traditions and beliefs and teach proper values and behavior.
2. Zajal
Zajal is a traditional Arabic form of oral poetry that originated and has widely spread in the regions of the Middle East and Lebanon. The performance of this ancient folk poetry usually takes place during social and family celebrations.
Zajal poets can be both men and women who recited or sung poetry in the form of a verbal challenge and can be done with or without musical accompaniments.
The zajjalin or the poets express themselves through various themes and topics such as love, life, politics, death, and daily life events.
Zajal is also a significant part of the people’s lives in the Lebanese mountains, especially the shepherds. They use this ancient storytelling technique in their idle time to keep them awake and entertained. Before the coming of radio, television, and the internet, Zajal was the primary form of entertainment in the Arab regions.
3. Bharatanatyam
According to ancient Hindu texts, Bharatanatyam is a classical Indian dance that originated in the Hindu temples of South India. Bharatanatyam was said to be created due to the gods’ request to communicate profound knowledge to the Hindus.
As one of India’s highly practiced and most popular dance forms, Bharatanatyam requires a solid devotion and rigorous training for the dancers to master and execute the techniques.
Dancers communicate to their audience through the movements of their limbs, gestures, and complicated footwork. Emotions are expressed through facial and body language.
The sole purpose of the dance is for both the audience and the dancer to attain a higher level of spiritual consciousness.
4. Rakugo
An ancient Japanese storytelling technique, Rakugo is a form of verbal entertainment developed in the 1600s to entertain ordinary citizens. Translated as “fallen leaves,” it is performed by a solo male storyteller in a traditional Japanese kimono, switching performance from one character to another using minimal props — a paper fan and a hand towel.
The lone performer will sit in front of an audience, and without rising from his seat, he will comically tell a long traditional story.
Although storytellers can improvise their performance, Rakugo’s original style and presentation remained the same. Japanese are not known to be humorous and comedic; however, this type of storytelling has endured throughout the years because it serves as a form of outlet to keep them entertained.
5. Nang Yai
Nang Yai is an ancient form of shadow play in Thailand. It is believed that Nang Yai came to Thailand from India because the stories told in this art form were various episodes from the Ramayana, an ancient Indian epic tale in Sanskrit.
Interwoven with Thailand’s unique culture and tradition, the prologue of a Nang Yai performance tells an entertaining story of a white and black monkey, aimed to provide a valuable moral lesson of the triumph of good over evil.
Although shadow play has been shared in cultures and civilizations in Asia, Nang Yai is distinct because of the life-size puppets elaborately designed from various animal hide.
It is performed behind a large cloth that serves as a screen and accompanied by a musical ensemble of traditional Thai instruments, narrators telling the story in a heightened speech, and the puppeteers who manipulate the puppet figures’ action through dance movements.
Nang Yai is known as a royal court performance, and due to this rarity, it was in danger of becoming extinct.
Through the persistent efforts and initiatives of one theatre group in Bangkok, they have successfully maintained and preserved this tradition.
6. Fables
Fables are timeless literary devices and one of the oldest forms of oral and written storytelling. Fables are so prevalent that they are found in almost all cultures and civilizations all over the world.
Usually, in narrative form, the stories featured mostly animals behaving like humans with emphasis on fundamental human weaknesses and follies and with the sole purpose of teaching a moral lesson.
This kind of storytelling is popular with children’s literature. Children find talking monkeys, playful grasshoppers, cunning foxes, and a goose laying golden eggs entertaining and appealing, making lessons of the story more useful and relevant.
The most noted and ancient collection of fables are the Greek fables, also known as the Aesop’s fable in the literary world. It contains up to about 200 fables.
Recently, fables have risen in popularity because it is employed by authors to depict more serious topics concerning social issues.
Cultural Preservation through Storytelling
Modernization has been generally viewed as a great leap of progress in man’s civilization. Because of technology and how fast-paced daily living can be, we set aside and often neglect our old-age cultural traditions and practices.
Our ancestors’ traditional ways of storytelling are important in our cultural survival — the survival of our identity and the survival of primitive methods known to benefit man and his surroundings.
Our storytelling traditions are the living legacies that we can pass to future generations. Often, the lack of cultural awareness results in the death and extinction of our unique and beautiful cultural heritage.
If only the present and future generations can learn to know and value these cultural traditions, humanity can solve many of its most daunting problems; famine and war, food shortage, global warming, and cultural conflicts and division.
