Sensing Stories is a creative development project delivered through the Scottish International Storytelling Festival and the Scottish Storytelling Forum. In 2024 a group of Deaf Students plus SLI students from Herriot Watt University took part in a series of 6 workshops led by Deaf Creative, Tania Allan.
Sensing Stories was open to any person aged eighteen or over, who uses BSL (British Sign Language) and who is based in Scotland who could benefit from at least one of the following:
The participants didn’t have to have a background in the arts but through a series of in-person workshops, they learned about how to tell a story in BSL, gained confidence, and explored the world of Visual Vernacular.
“I use Visual Vernacular, which combines facial expressions, body language, and hand shapes to add tone and emotion to a story. This is a form of storytelling that’s unique to the deaf community, and it’s more than just miming – it’s a way of truly embodying the story, making it come alive in a way that spoken language can’t.” – Tania Allan, Deaf Artist
At the end of the project, participants visited the Scottish Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh to see BSL Storytelling in action. Smoke & Sickle. Combining the mythical with the modern, Emery Hunter and Bobby Bradley explored how we navigate each other’s identities in moments of vulnerability. Diving between languages and cultures, this retelling of the Selkie myth offered an exploration of identity, trust and manipulation, exploring how we make judgements on others and how we use our own identities in the world. Performed in BSL, Visual Vernacular and English. Originally commissioned for the Village Storytelling Festival 2024. Following the performance the group had a Q&A session with the performers which inspired a lot of interesting ideas and sparked a love of storytelling that the group were keen to continue.
Keep following for updates on the next stages of the project.
TRACS (Traditional Arts & Culture Scotland SC043009) brings together the Traditional Music Forum (SC042867), the Scottish Storytelling Forum (SC020891) and the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland (SC045085). TRACS is based at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, which is a partnership project between the Storytelling Forum and The Church of Scotland (SC011353).
