Storytelling vs Stand-up
Dear Creative,
for the past few months, I’ve been participating to the Storytelling evenings at the Beast Comedy Club.
They go like this: each participant has 10 min to share a story of their choice. The content doesn’t have to be funny but needs to be slightly interesting.
Those evenings give me the opportunity to explore the many different ways one story can be written and shared. I find it an incredibly satisfying creative process. Plus it gives me a deadline and forces me to finish a text, whereas on here I tend to procrastinate or let Resistance win. The proof with this post that I sarted writing back in May and could never edit or post!
What struck me the most in this experience, was how Storytelling feels like compared to the very few times I did Stand-up. I compare them because they are similar experiences: both in Comedy Clubs; both saying something personal on a stage with an audience.
Let me first tell you about my first attempt doing Stand-up in 2019.
Back then, I was watching Stand-up on Netflix - A LOT - and thought to myself: ‘I could do that too!’ Just randomly. I had never wanted to do any acting or any stage stuff but thought: ‘I can totally do that!’ So I did. But I put soooo much pressure on myself thinking that I too was going to have to make it on Netflix soon, that I had crazy back-pain and my stress level was through the roof. I had a great first experience and not so great experiences after that. At the time I was doing many different things and Stand-up wasn’t a priority for me so I gave up.
Storytelling feels different. First of all, it helps that there is no Storytelling Special on Netflix! Jk! The difference is that I don’t have an agenda. My only aim is that people get the story and have a good time as well as having a good time myself. Before I started, I decided that I was simply going to keep doing it as long as it’s fun. Which so far it has been every single time!
Maybe by now I finally integrated what Elizabeth Gilbert says about not putting pressure on your Creativity, not needing it to make money because it’s a disservice to both our Creativity and ourselves. Again not having an agenda.
One of my favourite part of Storytelling is to actually be part of a group, the group who took the Storytelling workshop that Albert and Ilektra gave back in April. It feels like we are doing this together. It makes me feel what Christine Gerberutt meant when she said: self-expression is nothing without the people. It’s also what Ivan Semashev was emphasizing during the interview I did with him last week. One of the reasons he loves doing Stand-up so much is because of the community. Podcast episode coming soon.
And last but not least, what I find highly valuable in this work is the work on myself. What will I heal or learn about myself in the process?
Like Amie McNee says: ‘Creativity is the missing pillar of Self-development’. Because you’ll need to face so many things before even being able to start working on your projects let alone putting your work out there!
And I think when we can see our Creative work as a Self-development tool rather than being too focused on the result, we are already successful -or at least that’s what I like to tell myself.
