TELLING TALES AT CENTENNIAL PARK
By Anna Jarrett
Published in Interpreting Australia Newsletter.
Autumn 2004. Issue 25.
Newsletter is available on Interpretation Association Australia’s website
TELLING TALES AT
CENTENNIAL PARK
©
Anna Jarrett
“All the world loves a story”
Sam Ham
Imagine a small group of children walking through the forest on a historical
discovery adventure. At the start of the walk, the Ranger is dressed in
ranger uniform and the kids are in their summer play clothes. By the end of
the journey, the Ranger and the children are all dressed in historical
costumes with an early 1900’s look, and a reenactment of the Federation Of
Australia Celebration is being enjoyed by the whole group. This was the
scene at Centennial Parkland’s Summer Holiday Program and here’s the story
behind how the program was developed.
Centennial Parklands features three of Australia’s most historic parks and
has provided a leisure retreat for city folk for one hundred years. Every
holidays, the Parklands presents a variety of family holiday activities
including some innovative interpretive programs. Last summer, the Park’s
interpretive team decided to explore Centennial Parkland’s grand history
through a dramatic storytelling program called “Hunters and Convicts”. I
worked with the interpretive team of three, to create an interactive ninety
minute program which would appeal to young people between the ages of six to
twelve.
The idea behind the program was to create a celebration of place and to help
children and their parents to gain a deeper appreciation of the park’s
history and importance. Being a holiday program, the challenge was to bring
history alive and to make it sound exciting as well as fun. Rangers Rachel,
Anna and Karen searched through the Park’s library to find a wonderful range
of stories, fascinating facts and telling historical pictures. The first
step was to train up in storytelling so the staff attended a one day seminar
which I presented in collaboration with John Pastorelli and the Historic
Houses Trust called “Working With Stories”. The second step was to gather
every possible idea for the program and to brainstorm possibilities. The
third step was to spend a day exploring all these possibilities as well as
collating the research, finding the best stories and the strongest
storyline.
Finding the stories about a place and crafting them for retelling, is the
art of storytelling. As a professional storyteller and interpreter, I worked
with the rangers on an intensive creative consultation where we looked for
the characters, the quirks, the surprises and the downright disgusting
stories which are all part of the Park’s history. Fortunately, these tales
were abundant and our biggest challenge was choosing the best tales for the
program. Guiding questions and a theme list helped us to stay focused as we
revealed layers of stories within stories and felt the excitement of
bringing history to life. In fact, Centennial’s history is so lively that it
started jumping out of the pages at us and we had to hold it back! We asked:
What was Centennial Park before it was a park?
What did the area look like?
Who lived there and what did they do?
We placed the research in a timeline of four periods which moved from
prehistory to early settlement to the 1900’s to today. As we plotted and
planned, the Park history revealed itself with a motley crew of characters
including travelling Aboriginal people, convict workers and overseers, night
soil men, petty thieves, the gentry and other V.I.P.’s. We connected each of
these characters to specific events and actions, then we explored the
characters’ relationships with each other. With all these characters
inhabiting the spirit of times past within the park, we asked, “How can we
tell the Park’s BIG story in the space of a short holiday program?
This brought us to the final stage of designing the program so that it would
hold the attention of a group of up to fifteen children. Stories are
strongest when they’re grounded in their place and given a clear context. We
chose a few spaces within the park where we could bring these stories to
life using a variety of storytelling techniques from visualization to
playing games to role playing. Once the spots were chosen, the rest of
planning was easy. Using a process similar to editing, we brought the
stories into a tight structure of three stories in three places. I left it
up to the rangers to decide how they wanted to tell their stories as
everyone has their own style of telling and presenting. Finding your own
style as a storyteller also helps you find your strengths.
What a great program it turned out to be! Ranger Karen led the group through
the paperbark forest to Lachlan’s Swamp where we were taken back in time to
ponder what life was like before plumbing and easy access water. Lots of
historical information was woven into questions and answers which engaged
the children in the process of being time travellers. With the scene now
set, we were ready to move to the second scene, at the edge of the forest
next to open space. Karen told a few stories which captured the conflict in
character stories. Children were invited in pairs to dress up as the
characters and to tell the story from their point of view with the audience
acting as the jury. Lots of laughs later, we were invited by Karen to move
on to the third scene – the reenactment of The Federation Celebration next
to the formal gardens. Everyone played a role in this freeze frame staging
and what a colourful scene it was! There were ladies having a tea party,
pick pockets, police, a photographer and even Sir Edmund Barton!
Sharing stories about a place is a powerful way to learn a little history as
well as to make personal connections. Attendance for this program was high,
the feedback from both the parents and the kids was totally positive and
there were lots of requests to do more of this sort of programming. Here’s
to more stories being told and to storytelling being nurtured as an integral
part of the art of interpretation.
For more information please contact:
Rachel Ely, Centennial Parkland Ph: 9339 6629
Anna Jarrett, Travelling Storyteller Ph: 4472 3718
Back<<<
Custom designed storytelling programs and productions for community and corporate groups.
Australia and worldwide.
Bookings & Information: send email