Celebrate our common humanity and the unique beauty of diverse experiences during this 6 week international community festival. 27 individuals from Baltimore to Bengaluru share their personal and cultural stories about life in quarantine, racism, relationships, social justice, empowerment, persistence, mortality, immigration, identity, courage, loneliness, and sustainable living through narrative, music, art, animation/video/short film, and more. See the schedule and learn more about the storytellers and their stories below.
If you require captioning during the event, please submit your request to [email protected] at least 48 hours before the event.
• M Pandiarajan (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Hard to Escape”
• Priti Sudarsan (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Funny Folk Story”
• Fathima Zarin (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter”
Introductory Remarks by Special Guest, Dr. Eric Miller. Director, World Storytelling Institute and Co-facilitator, Indian Storytelling Network.
M Pandiarajan (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Hard to Escape”
A woodcutter who wants to escape death, creates a plan to lock up the God. In time, he accepts death and welcomes it. M Pandiarajan is a banker who has been telling stories to children at hospitals, homes and schools, for the last 7 years. He has also performed in the annual Chennai storytelling festival,(India) directed by Dr Eric Miller.
Priti Sudarsan (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Funny Folk Story”
Priti Sudarsan will present a humorous folk story. Ever since she was a child, she loved inventing stories and performing them for people. A yearning to do something creative with her time led her to attend a storytelling workshop and later establish Story Voyage.
Fathima Zarin (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter”
Zarin relays the memoir Shilpa Raj, who was born into a poor Dalit family in a South Indian village, where the odds are really against any girl. This honest, gritty, hard-hitting, and poignant story depicts Shilpa’s family life, school experiences, sexual harassment, infatuations, and more. Zarin is a professional storyteller who was mentored by Dr. Eric Miller, founder of the World Storytelling Institute. She is also a researcher with over eight years of experience in the IT industry, specializing in Analytics and received the certificate of excellence for her book review on “Les – Miserables a French novel by Victor Hugo ” from the Kanal group, a Dubai based readers community.
