Narativ Storytelling Master Class
Taught by Murray Nossel, PhD

• 12 classes in 12 weeks
• First class Thursday September 16, 6-8pm, and every Thursday through December 16
• Work intensively as a group excavating, constructing and performing your stories
• $1400 ($1000 for students and others who are currently unemployed)

Location – Simple Studios 134 West 29th St.
Between 6th and 7th Ave, 2nd floor

Over the past two years, Narativ has offered a 4-week seminar series as a follow up to the introductory workshop. These seminars provide participants with in-depth training in story construction and performance through exercises in:

• What happened?
• Details
• Dialogue
• Juxtaposition and interweaving of multiple stories

Many students of the seminar series have requested an extended course opportunity, to work intensively and collaboratively as a group to craft their own stories, and to work on the performative elements of storytelling that inform Two Men Talking. This course is designed in response to those requests.

In our post-seminar surveys, participant report a wide range of benefits, including

• Improved storytelling techniques and strategies
• Enhanced communication skills
• Expanded creativity in all aspects of life
• Deeper relationships: connecting with others in an authentic, joyful way
• Confidence in performance and public speaking
• Better use of body, breath and voice
• Ease and fluidity in writing
• Psychological growth
• Spiritual practice

Each session will include a short lesson, creative exercises, and opportunities for storytelling and performance. Students will be encouraged to produce a cohesive body of work over the 12 weeks, and the Master Class will culminate in a public performance and an online chapbook at the Narativ web site. We hope that other publications will flow from this shared learning opportunity as well.

A detailed syllabus can be found below. For more information and to enroll in the Master Class, please contact Jerome Deroy (Jerome@narativ.com).

EXCAVATING STORIES

• Opening of mind
• Functions of storytelling
• Working with memory and dreams
• Memory boxes and objects
• Listening to others and the self
• Creativity

CONSTRUCTING STORIES

• Structure
• What happened?
• Stakes
• When and how to include feelings, abstractions etc
• The roles of writing and editing

PERFORMANCE

• Connection to Body
• Connection to Voice
• Connection to Story
• Connection to Audience
• Co-telling