Please join us for a fun, cosy evening of Winter's tales at Cairndow Village hall.

The evening will be hosted by two storytellers's who are:

Gauri Raje

Gauri was born and grew up in India, arriving in the UK as an adult in 1999. She moved to Scotland in 2017. Her first memories of storytelling are of sitting wrapped up in the sari of her great grand-mother reading stories to her. She remembers her father telling her and her sister stories as children, that were autobiographical or of Marilyn Monroe, Tarzan and the adventures of the British royalty. She did not grow up with a fascination of traditional Indian stories, instead a deep relish of story-listening that meant intimacy. She began to be fascinated by myths, stories and their power to hold community memories and transform hearts & minds during her doctoral fieldwork among indigenous and displaced communities in western India.

Gauri is a storyteller, educator and workshop facilitator working with adolescents and adults from multilingual, multicultural and disadvantaged backgrounds. She works with different genres: folk tales, fairy tales, epics and myths, mainly from non-European regions, and autobiographical storytelling. She tells stories in various languages including Urdu, Hindi, English and other Indian languages such as Gujarati and Marathi. She is especially interested in the concepts of witnessing in storytelling, translation, multilingualism and embodied nature of creating stories.

Gauri formally trained in telling stories with the School of Storytelling, Sussex and then with Jan Blake. She incorporates her training in Indian classical music and dance in her storytelling. She believes storytelling to be a community art form and trained in Theatre of the Oppressed and witness based work, which enables those with no performance background to tell their stories.

Daniel Serridge

Dan Serridge is a storyteller, community artist and facilitator who creates vibrant and exciting storytelling projects for all ages and abilities. He tells stories and helps people to tell theirs, supporting everyone to see their experiences as pieces of artwork waiting to be told. Through a combination of the personal and the folkloric Dan explores the power of metaphor and meaning that sharing stories can hold.

Dan loves to tell all kinds of stories from the foolish to the mythical but it is enthusiasm, energetic style that drives most of his work. He loves connecting with people and audiences of all ages and stages and has gained vast experience in working with schools and communities in rural and urban environments.

Dan is now based in Glasgow, following several years developing adult training programmes and managing projects for The Village Storytelling Centre he now has extensive experience of working in all contexts and environments.