Diane Edgecomb

Greetings and thanks for visiting my page.

I’m a storytelling, story-making artist committed to the transformative power that happens between teller and audience at live performances. The stories I tell are a reflection of the treasures I’ve found in ancient tales as well as new stories distilled from life experiences. My aim when retelling traditional tales is to revitalize our links to archetypal content and renew our experience of community through shared events. In my role as a workshop leader I strive to help a new generation learn the narrative and expressive skills I’ve developed over years of work. This includes a deeply embodied storytelling practice which incorporates elements of theatre: movement, song, and nuanced characters.

My work often includes writing in many forms. I have authored two very different books both of which have an intimate and comfortable narrative feel: A Fire in My Heart: Kurdish Tales which I developed with extensive help and contributions from the Kurdish community including Sabahattin Alkan who was my guide to mountain villages as well as five other translators and scholars who helped bring these stories forward in the English language. Through my Kurdish Storytelling Project— which is still ongoing— I’m now digitizing over 100 videos of tellers and 40 audiocassettes, preserving the rich heritage of the Kurdish people for posterity. My most recent book: “Source Work for Actors” is a narrative of a workshop taken with Zbigniew Cynkutis leading actor with Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre. The training I received in this workshop continues to inform all of my artistic work and indeed an approach to life. This writing on Cynkutis’ workshop opens up rich source material for actors showing ways we can access the hidden power of nature in our work and our own inner depths. Body Voice and Image come alive as one powerful trinity in the development of tasks led by Cynkutis and brought to life in this book.