A Centre for International Storytelling

A dedicated space for storytelling
Performance storytelling requires a combination of three elements: a storyteller, an audience and a story. We have these three elements and now we need a fourth: a permanent, dedicated space where performance storytelling can occur. Over 25 years we have developed knowledge of a fine body of storytellers; a large, socially and culturally diverse audience for storytelling has emerged, and we have explored the full range of stories, from jokes to creation myths. Until now storytelling work has been largely peripatetic and opportunities for public audiences to access storytelling have been haphazard. The audience for storytelling demands a regular visible venue; professional storytellers need it so that they can determine the physical and spatial conditions in which they work, and a secure venue would permit bolder, freer experimentation with the stories and their performance.

The vision for a centre
The LCIS aims to create such a space by 2012: a venue dedicated to nothing less than the performance, exploration and celebration of the ephemeral improvised art and intangible heritage of the performance storytelling and other oral narrative traditions of all the peoples of the world.
The primary function of the centre will be to provide public audiences with regular access to high quality storytelling performances. It will also provide space for exhibition, artistic experimentation and research. It will co-ordinate on-site and off-site community and educational programmes, based on oral communication, oral traditions and the content of myth and folk narrative. Its activities will serve all generations of the general public, and appeal to immediate, national and international communities and the interests of educationalists, academics and artists.
The centre will also aim to establish a point of focus for a catholic diversity of related traditional and narrative art forms, ranging from commedia dell’ arte to cooking, from martial arts to mime, from praise singing to figurative painting.

A centre for international storytelling in London
The narrative traditions of the world know few geographical or political boundaries and therefore stories represent an essential common international, cultural resource. The London Centre for International Storytelling will be continually celebrating storytelling traditions from across the globe, thus perpetuating them. The international nature of Storytelling makes it a vital art form for valuing and exploring both cultural diversity and human commonality.
London is the largest city in Europe and one of the most culturally diverse and creative cities in the world. With over 300 languages spoken in the capital and with 50 non-indigenous groups making up a population of over 10,000; what better place for a centre for international storytelling?

The LCIS Trustees and staff are currently working to identify a possible venue for this exciting and innovative project.
If you would like to support our work, then please contact us.

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