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Storytelling chicago9/22/2023 ![]() “We want them to have creative agency and the ability to share their stories with people in whatever professional field that they go into.” As the series gains momentum, Alexandroff hopes that it will become a student-led program. It's one thing to be able to write a good story, to go out and present that story before a live audience,” says Alexandroff. “The ability to present a story before a live audience is a culmination of a student’s educational journey. Students Stories Alexandroff believes that live storytelling is especially beneficial for emerging student artists because it’s not competition-based, which provides an inviting and inclusive atmosphere. Identity and story are intertwined,” she says. The theme of identity allows performers and audiences to relate to the similarities and empathize in the differences with each other. All of these things shaped my identity growing up. “The essay is about family, pain, fear, abandonment, and race. English and Creative Writing MFA candidate Rebecca Khera began the evening with her essay, Gas Station Wedding. Identity and Empathy For the first Sez Me event, the crowd sat in the half circle of chairs surrounded by guitars, monitors, and familiar faces. “Identity and story are inevitably intertwined,” says English and Creative Writing MFA candidate Rebecca Khera, who read from her essay. The title of the event is a reference to Chicagoese, a distinctive Midwestern dialect that calls back to the city’s unique brand of storytelling. The distinction between the two programs and Sez Me is its embrace and inclusivity of other artistic mediums. That event, along with the popular national storytelling series The Moth, inspired Alexandroff to gather a group to create Sez Me. With Sez Me, Columbia enters the scene with an on-campus event that revitalizes former storytelling program Silver Tongue, which ended seven years ago. Storytelling Chicago Style With bookstore open mics, bar story hours, and comedy showcases, live storytelling is alive in well in Chicago. During the first event, held on October 15 in the Library’s Reading Room, performances ranged from personal essays, a band performance, stand-up comedy, and poetry exploring the evening's chosen theme of “Identity.” “Ultimately it is storytelling the unites us as a creative community,” says Alexandroff, who led the effort to start the series with faculty and staff members across the college. ![]() Sez Me is a new, multi-disciplinary storytelling series for all Columbia students, staff, faculty, and alumni that provides a space for storytelling outside of traditional writing disciplines. ![]() “Ultimately it is storytelling that unites us as a creative community.” This fall, Alexandroff, along with English and Creative Writing Chair Ken Daley, Cinema and Television Arts Chair Eric Scholl, English and Creative Writing Associate Professor Patricia McNair, Communication Associate Professor George Zarr, Communication Assistant Professor Matt Cunningham, Theatre Assistant Professor Richard Walker, and others began Sez Me: The Columbia Story Hour (and a Half). Whether it’s fine arts, performing arts, or media arts, all of us tell stories through our creative disciplines,” says Norman Alexandroff, Library communications coordinator. ![]() Multi-Disciplinary Storytelling “On some level, we are all storytellers. Sez Me: The Columbia Story Hour (and a Half) brings a Chicago sensibility to the new live storytelling series on campus. Humanities, History and Social Sciences. ![]()
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