How stories are told around the world, Even if a story is the same each culture will tell it differently

From Ideas.Ted.com March 17, 2015.

“How stories are told around the world, Even if a story is the same each culture will tell it differently

It’s said there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love, once you’ve heard their story. Dave Isay knows that. The ability to honor every human by listening to what they have to say about themselves is central to StoryCorps, the nonprofit he founded in 2003.

The premise of StoryCorps is simple: One person interviews another and their conversation is recorded for posterity. It’s a strikingly straightforward proposition. But then, storytelling has always been less about glitz or gadgetry and more about connection and communication. No matter the tech, humans have invariably figured out a compelling way to tell each other stories.

That’s not to say we all tell stories the same way. Far from it. As Kay Turner, a folklorist and independent scholar who’s on the board of the New York Folklore Society, notes, “Even if a story is the same, each culture will tell it differently, because each one has its own genres and cultural rules.” That’s led to a host of different traditions and practices beloved around the world. Here are just some of them.

Hula
You might not know it while on an island vacation luau, but traditional hula dancers dance not to a beat, but to language, Hawaiian-language chants or songs. Without the words, the dance loses meaning as a story. Hula shares traditional stories as well as mythology and creation tales, including those of the gods and goddesses of the islands.”

Read more:

https://ideas.ted.com/how-stories-are-told-around-the-world/