Tell a Tiny Tale: Midwinter Workshop and Performance

If you’ve always wanted to learn how to craft a story and perform it in front of an audience, here’s your chance!

Over four workshops you will work with storyteller and poet, Jaya Penelope, responding to the themes of this year’s Melville Midwinter.

Important note: The workshops will run on Thursday evening for four weeks from 6.00pm to 8.00pm. The dates for these sessions are Thursday, 28 May, 4 June, 11 June, and 18 June, culminating in a Melville Midwinter performance on Saturday, 20 June 2026.

Booking into these sessions secures your spot in the 4 workshops below.

Week 1: Introduction to the art of oral storytelling and stories. Activities to reduce a story to its core message. Participants identify and select a story they want to work with.

Week 2: Getting into the story - setting, characterisation, spatial awareness

Week 3: Storytelling techniques and activities - voice, gesture, word choice, polarities.

Week 4: Practice and refinement, microphone rehearsal.

Saturday, June 20: Performance at Melville Midwinter

About your facilitator:

An advocate for the power and relevance of oral storytelling; community-based storyteller and poet Jaya Penelope has told stories at festivals, schools, retreat centres and libraries throughout WA. She is an experienced educator and regularly runs classes, workshops and retreats in poetry, creative writing and storytelling.