THE BEYOUTIFUL SHE TURTLE

presented by

Ayushi Agrawal, Rona Mentari, Lavanya Prasad & Valentina Ortiz

Broadcast 13 April 2023

Let the comments from the audience chat speak for the performers:

Maggid Jim Brulé:   Fantastic! One of the best storytelling events I've ever attended!!!!

Selina            Stunning storytelling!!!

Lalitha:          Thank you feast. This was so wonderful.

Priti Modyiyer Fabulous!! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Dee P:           That was absolutely amazing… Thank you for your stories ladies. I loved it. ❤️

Christine Carlton:  What wonderful telling from all four women. Excellent collaboration and individual sharing.

Kiran Shah:   Bravo team, best olio I've watched!

Shelly:           Wow bravo ladies 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Ngoc Nguyen:    Thank you for sharing your lovely stories today. Bravo!!!!

Anushree:     This was a new experience for me. Haven't experienced or been part of a storytelling session before. So powerful and beautiful.

Kiran Shah    Great intro, seamless transition into Ayushi's lovely story.

Meher Gehi:  Such mesmerizing singing Rona👏

Banu Mathy: What a love story, Rona💓‼️‼️

Shelly:           What a powerful tale Lavanya - and I loved how you weaved in the two stories 👏🏼

Jyoti Pande:  Beautiful Lavanya …. ”you are never impure, you are always sacred “…….loved it

Kiran Shah:   Valentina, perfect culmination to this olio. Great singing, and rich cultural sharing.

Review by Poonam S Joshy

To begin with , I was quite fascinated by the name of the Olio: "Infinite shades of humanity" five tellers, five countries, different cultures coming together seeking a common human value, and I was waiting to soak in the stories for this was the last Olio of 2022. The team comprised of Cem Alfar from Turkey, Alla Lebedeva (Russia),  Anabellle Castano (Argentina), C. Mangalam Senthil (India) and Jo Henwood (Australia). 

The blue background and the flame of the candle set the mood in the very beginning and I was drawn into the story space immediately.

Cem began with introductions in his characteristic style, light comedy and a friendly demeanour. The conversation between the storytellers in the very beginning was very informative, as they spoke about the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the eastern hemisphere. The mixed feelings of warmth and cool made the setting very intriguing ... and gave a Glimpse of hope!

The first story by Alla was about a young man and how he changes an adverse situation into his favour and comes out victorious, thereby exhibiting a bright shade out of the infinite shades of humanity. Alla's involvement in the story made it come alive for the listeners. Her expressive eyes and her facial expressions added to the excitement of the story. 

Annabelle started her story by posing a question to the listeners, "How do you start a myth, how do you create a myth"? And what unfolded was a story that will stay with me for a long time. Her style of telling was easy and informal, the rhyming words added to the music to her telling' Iit felt like she was there with me, talking to me. I just loved it.

Cem narrated the story "No one can make a content man." His joyful telling was a great experience that transported me into his story world. It's always a pleasure to listen to him. His simple choice of vocabulary and voice modulation added to the charm. 

The next story was about miracles and lessons from Nature. Told by Alla in her conversational style, her word play and the embodiment of different elements of nature made the story vivid and experiential for me.

Mangalam followed next with a story from Kerala about a Chinese merchant and his ten porcelain jars. In her telling Mangalam has music flowing for she has a sweet voice and a perfect diction. Her voice modulation and facial expressions are worth complimenting as they elevate the story to a different level.

The epic of Gilgamesh was presented by Jo in a captivating style. She is a complete performer switching from one character to another in perfect ease. The entire space from where she stood till the camera was used with great expertise. Her stage presence, her stance, her facial expressions all made the story come alive. Her romance with the camera was tantalising for sure. The whole experience was enthralling.

All in all it was a wonderful Olio put together by these exceptional tellers, in their distinctive styles and threaded together by Cem with poems of wisdom by Rumi. 

"Humanity will Survive, Humans will Die"

'REVIEW' by CEM ALFAR:

I missed the beginning but I have seen that all storytellers shared the same screen, spotlighted at the same time when explaining the main subject between King Vikram and Vetal.

It was a good feeling to notice the harmony between the storytellers who wore costumes and accessories that matched with each other. The colorful and sharp background images made the stories even more attractive. The depth of the backgrounds and the proportions of the faces to the screen size were kept the same throughout the show, which helped the transitions from one teller to another, and one story to another, in an easy and seamless way. The use of horse neighing and galloping when switching between storytellers was very creative. 

In the first story by Nidhi and Debjani I liked the start by singing a joyful song and dancing together. The use of accessories when imitating different people and feelings was amazing. They made excellent use of visual elements to help us non-speakers to understand the Mother Tongue dialogue and narration - there were scarves, a crown, hat, rings, a moustache and changed their backgrounds in a very agile way. Debjani’s black hat and black background made the hat disappear sometimes. 

In the second story Lavania’s talent in playing the original musical instrument and singing mesmerized us. Even in some point she creatively used the sticks as bow and arrow. Banu’s vivid and joyful telling accompanied by the oscillations of her ear rings. Both of them used fascinating body and hand gestures, facial and vocal expressions. When Banu moved her head upright of the camera we noticed the glare and the reflection of the headlights into her glasses. Her wrist watch also created a little moment of mismatch with the historical ambiance and background. 

Debjani’s story endings and the corpse' questions were phenomenal. The evil sorcerer’s decapitated rolling head was my favorite scene. 

In general, all the shows and stories were perfectly presented and performed. Seven different language and other dialects were utilized, yet the stories were clear enough to be understood and timely enough to avoid repetitions or translations. The stories talked to us in their genuine story languages, thanks to the talented artists. 

In general I enjoyed a lot and appreciated the great teamwork behind this Olio’s night. 

'REVIEW' by CEM ALFAR:

I would like to congratulate you and whole team for the great presentation. Would you please share my comments with your friends.

What I liked in your story were the gestures, sound and imitations (especially all what you have done when imitating ice cream eating) that made the story even more interesting. The dialogs between Alya and Alfi were awesome.

Pretigaya’s superfish story was excellent and she told in in a beautiful way. I enjoyed her joy while telling the story and mimics a lot. Mumu has been enchanting and Preti was even more than that when she was tickled by the sword.

Nandita’s telling has been always natural, soft but very joyful and enthusiastic. I think she did well in putting herself totally in the shoes of her characters, of course including Juno.
Richa’s story was amazingly capturing thanks to her style, mimics, voice and big eyes. The drawings and the chosen colors on the paper were very nice. Neeru stands to be my favorite character among all characters.

Vidhyaa’s Nolala story was very nice. She was very good at imitating the music, both good and annoying tunes. I enjoyed the contrast she played between Godiya and Nolala.

The selection and telling of the final connecting story was very clever. This made possible to remind all characters and stories that had been told before. Nandita and Pratigaya collaborated very nicely. 
 
My special thanks goes to Juno. Nandita’s coming in and going outs made all transitions hassle free and enjoyable. Her talents in telling with a probe were great.

The final song and fading away of the storytellers and coming back with Juno’s calling all were excellent.  

In general the tellings were very clear, simple and entertaining. All storytellers were very successful in capturing the attention of the audience. The transitions from one story to the other was so special and funny that I will always remember Juno and how joyful and natural she spoke.  

From technical point of view everything worked well. The backgrounds, light and sound, the costumes, the proportion of the faces on the screen were all OK. Ambuja was standing away from the camera and microphone but still it worked well except for some fast hand movements and jumping where the voice scrambled a little and the images blurred.

I enjoyed, the audience had fun, the stories were great, the storytellers were amazing.