What is Storytelling?

Storytelling can be interpreted in many ways. At SpeakeasyDC, what we mean when we say storytelling is the performance of autobiographical narrative. Broken down into its parts it means a few things:

First, it’s a performance. These stories are shared live on a stage. It is an oral art, as opposed to written or visual. It is not a reading.
Second, it’s autobiographical, which means its true, original, and first-person. It’s not fiction or folktale.
Third, it’s narrative, which means it’s a story with an arc — a beginning, middle, and end. It is not an essay, a series of jokes, or poetry.

Below are two videos to help clarify what we do.

Produced by Seaton Smith. Thanks to Vivianne Njoku and Topher Bellavia.