Story Telling

Storytelling is the oldest art form of relaying events of the day, sharing thoughts, ideas and life lessons. Stories have been shared in every culture throughout the world as methods of preserving culture and language, to impart knowledge, values and morals to others.

Being raised in a Torres Strait Islander community, storytelling was a fundamental part of life for Getano and his family, as letter writing, telephone calls, emails, computers and television were too expensive or unheard of. So to gain knowledge on distant relatives or to catch up on the latest local gossip through the 'Bush Telegraphs' (word of mouth), stories were the only means in Getano's childhood to provide these lines of contact and information.

It was against this backdrop Getano developed his gifted and very personal approach to this ancient communication style. "Yes, you have to pad the stories and embellish the truth sometimes, no one is interested in a boring tale and some of my relatives were so exceptional in their storytelling, that you could hear the same yarn 5 times a day for a month, and you still couldn't get enough".

Getano has been invited on numerous occasions to share his life experiences and stories at a variety of settings including: prisons, schools, festivals, libraries, kindergartens, community centres and to diverse cultures including varying age groups. "The universal scheme is people love to share, laugh and have a goodtime. By identifying similar themes from my stories, people can reflect, embrace, reminisce, be enriched and grow from, their own experiences, which may have been, painful, difficult, or joyous".

As a Community Arts Worker, Getano has been employed on numerous projects, working with very diverse groups from remote indigenous and non-indigenous communities, the general public, homeless people, street kids, youth centres and detox units, where Getano has successfully use the art of storytelling to elicit information from children and adults to create, educational resource materials (e.g. Contact Inc - Third Place Projects), stage productions (e.g. Kite Theatre's - Kese Slowata, Outback Children Spectacular) and community theatre performances (e.g. West End Community Centre's - Stories and Sings from Vulture Street, BoysTown Christmas Show).

If you're interested in Getano presenting a story telling session at your venue, school or event, please send an email to getano@getanobann.com.au outlining your event, age group, numbers, venue and dates and Getano will promptly reply to your email.