TECHNO-IMAGINATIONS: INTERNET LORE IN ASIA

Oral traditions have proliferated across generations and cultures all over the world, as a tool for education, passing on values, or preserving cultural identity. This session will explore the more physical and performative side of folklore - storytelling.
The art form once held particular significance in Southeast Asia, serving as a means for the communities at the juncture of high ethnic pluralism to locally adapt and transmit regional mythology and folklore, such as the Ramayana, as well as the works of Confucius.
Once considered a dying art form, however, storytelling has been undergoing a revival in the past few years. But what role has the Internet played in its revival? How do we understand, then, the concept of digital folklore in relation to storytelling? What is the relationship between the corporeal, performative act of storytelling and the intangible way stories propagate themselves online?
In this 45-minute session Kamini Ramachandran will unpack some of these questions and ideas. Participants will then experience a live storytelling session, and observe and assess the ways stories shared in-person may be similar or different than the stories online.

Kamini Ramachandran is director of MoonShadow Stories and The Storytelling Centre Ltd. She is also creative producer of StoryFest: International Storytelling Festival Singapore. A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts with a BA English Language & Literature (Hons) UK, and MA Arts Pedagogy & Practice from Goldsmith’s, University of London, she currently teachers her course The Storytelling Intensive at LASALLE College of the Arts. Kamini has performed commissioned works for The Esplanade, The Arts House, the National Arts Council, as well as festivals and conferences across Europe, Asia, Australia and Middle East. Kamini is a founding member, four-term president (2008-2012) and Vice-President (2012-2017) of the Storytelling Association (Singapore).