Seeking mastery in Storytelling

By Limor Shiponi

Mastery is an ambiguous word raising the impulse of ownership and recognition, resonating something standing apart while representing a form of wholeness. What is it about mastery and mastery in storytelling that keeps me at this issue for so long?

For me, mastery is about inspiration, a northern-star I can dream about and act upon. I want to help my audiences, including myself, touch our stars for the sake of joy in life. I believe mastery leads that way and therefore I seek it, investigate it, I want to understand.

This is what I know: mastery lives in the physical world and it has an age; It lives in people. Mastery is not a degree or a title but rather a state of being, formulated by the work of a person who turnes his search and art into his walk in life without even knowing he is on the path to mastery; until one day, it arrives.

How do you know? You feel one with story, with listener and nothing stands in the way anymore. Time gives-in to your ability to craft it with each word, gesture or sound you make while traveling through a story told so many times before – told once again with the special group of people sitting in front of you. When you seek mastery, they are your companions sharing the path you are unraveling underneath their feet.

When mastery is present the story transcends its documentation, set free into full life. I see mastery in storytelling as magic – a performing art that entertains by creating suspension of disbelief in front of what is seemingly impossible or supernatural, using purely natural means like skill, knowledge, wisdom and love.

Since very young age I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people are fascinated from what seems to be there while it is not, trying to pass through the curtains and reach the back-stage of imagination. Eventually I found myself standing there and I can tell you what I know: mastery lives in the real world in the form of your own kindness, enchantment and glint in the eye. You get there if you are willing to acquire the skill and knowledge, walk the path and share the magic of life.