This Is My Body Storytelling Showcase
This Is My Body Storytelling Showcase
Y'all, vulnerability is hard but so worth it.
Last month I had the privilege of joining these amazing individuals in a storytelling show presented by the Novalia Collective. (You can catch the recording here!)
For anyone considering being a part of this or other autobiographical writing and performance work, here’s some of my first-timer reflections:
Structure and collaboration can make an ember into a friggin’ bonfire. 🔥
I didn’t even consider telling this story to an audience in this raw form because, well, I had spent a lot of time processing it with my close circle of support. But the curriculum of this program and the cohort that was selected reignited my dedication to telling it. Odelia and Vina are brilliant facilitators and producers! If you’re willing to dip your toe into the personal non-fiction realm of writing, TIMB is a surefire bet to get you going.
It’s not always about you, even though it is.
This work challenged me because my writing thus far has been for characters in a scenario, not me in real life. In fact, I wrote 3 distinct versions of this story in the program’s 10 week span, some of them leaning so heavily into metaphors that I started to confuse my closest confidantes who witnessed the actual events. Once I decided on whom I was speaking to, the story blossomed out of the coaching sessions and journal entries from years ago into something that might help another human out there pursuing entrepreneurship. 🌻 Who knows, maybe you’ve got a memoir in the making. Maybe you’ve got catharsis waiting for you on the other side. Regardless, I guarantee your story is worth telling.
Movement. Oh, movement.
I loved, LOVED, training with Tyler! Vocalizing and personifying the piece brought a new depth to communicating its meaning. Through workshopping plays, I’ve appreciated cold reads out loud to hear how a piece sounds (theater read-a-long’s are not a thing…yet!) but I hadn’t prepared myself to experience the words’ physicality. It’s cliché but adding movement brought the story to life. Embodying written work is pretty wild. It definitely took a load off of my brain and helped get me unstuck at times. Simply the wave of a hand or gripping a piece of furniture, feeling and holding the invisible narrative was so fun to practice. I have no doubt that I’ll be standing, sitting, rolling on the floor and dancing to written works of mine to come.
Theater requires community. Community creates culture.
If culture is critical to our humanity, maybe theater is a viable path to securing it. So many amazingly supportive people came to join us for the evening. The energy in the space was palpable and, by the end, I was hugging other people’s parents, SOs, and besties. ❤️ Thank you for making the journey to vulnerability possible, friends. It’s so much better with a crew.