In February and March 2011 I conducted a series of seven 2-day storytelling workshops for English teachers  in Hong Kong. These workshops were commissioned by the English Alliance (SCOLAR) which is part of the Hong Kong Bureau of Education.

I was fortunate to work with wonderful local partners on this project; Dr Vicki Ooi, Lynn Yau and their fantastic staff  from Shakespeare4All. It was obvious that they  are as passionate about drama education as I am about storytelling.

It was only my second trip to Hong Kong and though I  didn’t get time for much sightseeing, I felt that by working closely with so many teachers I got a real insight into at least one aspect of the country.

For many of the teachers it was their first experience of storytelling and it was wonderful  to watch them develop confidence in their telling abilities. Here  are some photos  of the workshops….

This demonstrates that you don't have to be good at drawing to tell a drawing story.

Image courtesy of Peranakan Museum, Singapore.

Sheila telling an episode from the Ramayana at the RAMAYANA REVISITED exhibition at the Peranakan Museum, Singapore.

Storywise  was commissioned by the museum to develop a storytelling programme  in which a team of six storytellers told consecutive episodes from the Ramayana in the exhibition space.  This  programme which  was very well received by museum patrons of all ages and nationalities,  ran over a series of the museum’s  Open House events  in 2010 and 2011.

The Ramayana Revisited Team of Tellers

From left to right: Dolly Leow, Sheila Wee, Juriah Atan, Helen Tan, Kamini Ramachandran, Jessie Goh and Nancy Leppard.