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A registered charity no. 1144493
A National Centre For The Oral Tradition
"re-establishing oracy and the oral tradition as central pillars of our culture"
As our culture becomes ever more sophisticated, scientists and cultural observers are reporting declines in attention spans, vocabularies, behavioural standards, and even cerebral development. In moving towards a media-centric, high-tech, virtual future, we seem to be leaving something essential behind. The very building blocks of human communication - story, image, metaphor and personal engagement - are increasingly overlooked and taken for granted. In a spirit of positive affirmation, and as a way of focussing attention on these issues, we believe that the time is ripe for the creation of a National Centre for the Oral Tradition (NaCOT), a dedicated space for the study and performance of the arts, skills, and practices that have carried our evolving cultures for tens of thousands of years.
Our aim is to nurture and advance the core attributes of the oral tradition - imagination, creativity, eloquence, confidence and authenticity. In doing so, we hope to influence educators and the wider public to re-centralise orality as an essential underpinning of child development and social skills. To do this we will present all that is best in the oral traditions various art-forms and disciplines, offering workshops, seminars and master classes for school children, professionals and private individuals of all ages. We are currently developing key learning and outreach partnerships. Fifty percent of the Centre's budget will be devoted to research and education.
In setting up On the Border, a poetry series in Chepstow that brings together great poets from either side of the border, we have embarked upon a three-stage journey towards the creation of a permanent home for poetry, storytelling, rap, rhetoric, stand-up, debating, advocacy, presenting, speechmaking, talks, and all forms of public utterance.
Stage One involves the creation of a small dedicated local centre, that will continue to promote the finest, most accessible, poets in the English language. Added to this we intend to present additional workshops, storytellings, outreach programmes and develop an online archive of oral histories. In partnership with Academi, the Welsh agency for the promotion of literature & society of authors, we are starting to create an outreach programme for returning ex-service personnel (see our document "The Return of the Warrior"). Our other partnerships in development include the audio-visual capture of poetic conversations, with the University of Glamorgan, professional and corporate presentation seminars with the Institute of the Spoken Word at Kingston University, and public speaking workshops for schoolchildren and disadvantaged adults with Contender Charlie.
Stage Two sees us developing a second larger centre. This will serve the community in a large conurbation, whilst broadening our scope to attract a national audience. It is important to say that we are not seeking to build a new structure, but rather to take over an existing building, ideally an arts-centre that has lost vision and/or direction. Our intention is to fill this building with life and learning, with seminars and workshops in the day and readings, performances, and events in the evening. Stage Three creates a rural centre, situated on the southern Welsh/English border. This second site will comprise of authentic traditional buildings: a Scandinavian longhouse, a Celtic roundhouse, a Saxon hall, and a purpose-build wooden amphitheatre for poetry. This unique venue would be a place of learning and world-class performance. It would also be a tourist destination in its own right. Funding for NaCOT will come from all sectors. In straightened fiscal circumstances, it is appreciated that public monies are going to be increasingly scarce. We will be aiming to develop working relationships with sponsors and seeking help from major IT corporations on a Corporate Social Responsibility basis.
Whilst seeking funding at local, regional, national and European levels we will also be approaching venture philanthropists (a more engaged form of giving that is becoming increasingly popular). We are currently looking to obtain seed money to acquire our Stage One centre and build the soundly based organisation necessary to carry this great dream forward.
People are turning back to the reassuringly human contact of oral performance, and live events of all kinds have never been so popular. We need to bring the magic of the spoken word back into our complex communal lives: to encourage social skills, to enhance standards of public speaking, and to better our public discourse. It is now time to create a National Centre for the Oral Tradition.
To contact us call William Ayot on 01291 638807 or email william.ayot@virgin.net