WELCOME TO STORYTELLING BEYOND WORDS 2025
Dates for 2025 cohort are 23rd Feb – 23rd May 2025 (with Easter break from Saturday 12th April – Monday 21st April, Back in class Tuesday 22nd April).
- +44 (0)1342 822238
- bookings@emerson.org.uk
Tuition fee: £5450 (bursaries available)
Accommodation & meals available on a self-catering, half or full-board basis, as follows:
Accommodation + welcome supper + lunches Monday – Friday – £3730.50
Accommodation with self catering – £2892.50
Lunches Mon – Fri only – £826.00
Lunches Mon – Fri only + Welcome supper – £838.00
If you have already been awarded a place on the course and would like to book your meals and accommodation at Emerson College, please contact our bookings team.
We are currently dreaming, visioning and updating our programme which will be based on the description below and will have new elements added. Stay tuned to the changes.
About The Course
- What makes a story work?
- Can words shift the world?
- What inner shift is asked of us to help this happen?
This full time, 12 week training in the art and craft of storytelling aims to prepare you to carry the spoken word and a lively imagination into your communities and places of work. Whether you wish through sharing stories to entertain, educate, counsel, inspire or advocate change; whether the stage, fire side, classroom, board room, or the bedside of a dying person is the context for your telling, this is our flagship training to develop a way of storytelling unique to your own voice and calling. Join us on a journey to light up your creativity and, through the surprising perspectives that this work offers, discover new aspects of who you are. This journey, both playful and profound, opens a path of development and transformation guided by humanity’s great shifters and shapers – Stories!
We are delighted once again to be able to accept students from outside the EU onto the course.
For the 3rd year in a row, Storytelling Beyond Words is aiming to offer at least one FULL tuition bursary spot and hopefully more. These bursaries are available through generous donations made on the SBW 2024 graduation weekend fundraiser and our online campaign.
If you are seeking to develop your storytelling skills and vision in service of your community but are not in a financial position to attend our course please contact the registrar in the first instance, requesting a bursary application form.
The full bursary will be given after a selection process to the most suitable person with priority based on:
Financial necessity – income based, underprivileged / disadvantaged background, demonstration of current community involvement to which you wish to bring the storytelling work to.
Application deadline for the full bursary is 1st December 2024.
Applicants will be notified by the 15th December 2024.
Would you like to experience what it feels like to take part in the course?
Long before television was ever imagined storytellers and bards, prophets and poets were called upon to tell their visions and, through a live encounter, provide images that could direct, entertain, provoke, heal and reconcile the communities in which they worked. As a storyteller any story that you craft will in turn craft you to be a fit instrument for its telling. We are, in fact, made of stories, some of which serve our individual and collective endeavours, others binding us to outmoded images. Imagination, therefore, will be our key to the invisible realm from which all stories and everything new and possible can be born. Coupled with clear intention, this essential human faculty will help us connect to those creative forces which are ever available to us. The future is shaped, for good or ill, by the stories we believe and follow.
When an old story cracks and falls apart we know a new one is emerging. The story of our time calls for heightened awareness of themes such as the relationship between outer world and inner experience, and the dynamics between the feminine and masculine principles. ‘Listen to life’s movement’, it says… ‘where it wants to flow, then risk following its currents’. The oral tradition is humming with fine and foolish wisdoms, and we invite you to join our enquiry into how what is sounding there can help the birthing of the new paradigm so much needed in our times.
As the pace of modern life accelerates, luring us away from the rhythms and patterns of nature, we intend in this course to slow down and attune to the heartbeat of the earth and open our five and twenty senses to the wonder of it. From this place of presence and connection a new language can arise. The art of deep listening is the foundation for the initiation of the storyteller, and as we practice it we will begin to develop ways to ‘speak into action’ the changes we wish for when faced by 21st century challenges.
Combining contemporary social entrepreneurial principles and skills with the repertoire of stories that you collect and shape during our time together you will be invited to create a research project on a personal, social or environmental theme (whatever is close to your heart) that can be taken into the world and engage the people around you. As the search for healthy social awareness is integral to the storyteller’s role, the honing of the required perception and skills will be a part of our practice. We, facilitators of the course, will strive to create a space in which we can all work and play together in freedom, sharing responsibility with you, our fellow learning practitioners.
In our work we mean to cultivate truthful, mindful and courageous speaking, sharing our passions, questions, vulnerabilities and aspirations. Walking this path you will be encouraged to align with your inner strengths and with the quest you brought with you into the world, remembering, of course, to have fun along the way.
At the end of each course we hold a festive End of Course Celebration where our graduates share the fruits of their explorations of personal and global current themes, through storytelling and song, social happenings, discussions, and mini-workshops.
Click on the images below to view our Graduation Day programmes.
SBW 2024 – Graduate Presentations
SBW 2023 – Graduate Presentations
SBW 2022 – Graduate Presentations
SBW 2021 – Graduate Presentations
- Programme
- Course fees
- Applications
- CPD & Certificates
Whilst this does not offer formal certification.
This course is ideal if you are looking to:
- Carry the spoken word into communities and places of work.
- Use the magic of stories to entertain, educate, counsel, inspire or advocate change.
- Develop a way of storytelling unique to your own voice and calling.
- Light up your creativity in playful and profound ways.
- Open for yourself a path of development and transformation.
Themes explored on the course:
The Oral Tradition: Building a repertoire as a storyteller, working with folk tales, wonder tales and ancient myths. As a group, we will explore the relationship between stories old and new, their relevance to our life, and which of them are asking to be told today.
The Skills of the Storyteller: In-depth work on story structure, voice, gesture, movement, audience awareness, spontaneity and improvisation, authenticity and presence.
Autobiographical Storytelling: Working with meaningful experiences of your life and shaping them into stories to inspire individuals and communities and to nourish the earth.
Visionary activism: Imagination, activated through work with stories, ritual, performance art and games, will enhance your potential to inspire, foster hope and bring into public consciousness the new narratives and visions that you wish to share.
Coaching: In a supportive atmosphere with individual tutorials, feedback and coaching you will develop your own style of telling and find what you wish to serve with your unique voice and stories.
Social action: Learning to use story, strategy and structure to put your vision into action. Developing ‘out of the box’ solutions to challenges you wish to address.
Deep listening in nature: Practices to tune in to the inter-relationships between all living systems, and our evolving planet as a conscious entity full of life and stories.
Performances: Throughout the course there will be plenty of scope for practicing your stories, including weekly opportunities to share them with a variety of audiences.
Self study: Participants are expected to put in a certain amount of work to get the most out of the course. This includes reading stories to find the ones they wish to work with and doing the required assignments over the weekends and breaks.
Supporting subjects will include: singing, movement, games and improvisation, connecting with nature, writing creatively and artistic craftwork.
Over the years we have worked with people from a wide range of backgrounds, nationalities, ages and professions. The working language is English.
Tuition fee: Early bird £5100* (bursaries available), after 1 November £5450 includes materials but excludes accommodation, meals and travel costs.
To secure your place on the course we require a non-refundable deposit of £500 to be paid within 14 days from receiving the official acceptance on the course. You are not fully confirmed on the course until this deposit is received.
The outstanding balance of the full fee is due by the 15 December 2024.
Fee structure: Our community of participants is usually made up of a mix of backgrounds, ages, experiences, occupations and roles. This diversity of perspective is an essential component of our learning experience and it also means that amongst the group we have a wide variety of financial capacities and needs.
If you wish to be a supporter and add a donation to help others receive a bursary to be able to attend this course please specify the amount you wish to donate which will be added to your invoice.
If you need a bursary or have any questions, please specify in your registration form.
Accommodation and Meals: Each of our student accommodations has its own kitchen where meals may be prepared, however you may wish to dine on our onsite canteen. Prices are as follows:
Accommodation + welcome supper + lunches Monday – Friday £3730.50
Accommodation with self catering £2892.50
Lunches Mon – Fri only £826.00
Lunches Mon – Fri only + Welcome supper £838.00
To book your accommodation and meals, please contact our bookings team.
HOW TO APPLY
To apply, please click here to apply, fill out the online application form and upload the required documents. If you have any questions please contact the registrar.
What You Will Need
To complete this application you will need to have the following documents:
- A copy or a scan of the information page of your passport (the one with your picture on it)
- A concise personal statement to include the following information:
– Why would you like to study on the Storytelling Beyond Words course?
– What do you expect to get out of the time you spend on the course?
– Describe your spiritual background, or acquaintance with Rudolf Steiner’s work.
– Tell us a little more about your previous education and training (or attach CV)
– One of our aims is to support you in bringing to life a storytelling project (including a repertoire of stories and activities) of your choice around a personal, social or global theme you are interested in. Can you share with us some initial thoughts of what the theme of your project might be and who/what would you wish to serve with your work? - a reference letter – to include connection/relationship to the applicant. Template available to download here
- A completed health statement available to download here: health statement
- A photo
You will also need to provide contact details for someone you would chose to be your emergency contact, should you be accepted onto the course.
Please Note:
During this training, we shall be working with traditional and biographical stories, all of which may serve as mirrors and doors to soul searching themes, and that may at times be challenging. Whilst the teachers will support all participants during the workshop, this is not a therapy group and that participants are ultimately responsible for their own process and integration of the experience.