Festival Artistic Director / Storyteller
Kamini Ramachandran (Malaysia/Singapore)
Kamini Ramachandran co-founded MoonShadow Stories in Singapore with the aim of reviving the oral narrative tradition focusing on adult audiences because she believes that once the beauty and wonder of the spoken word is reintroduced to adults, then children will benefit. Hence, MoonShadow Stories were the first contemporary storytellers in Singapore to spearhead storytelling for adults.
Storytelling has always been vital for Kamini, from her earliest memories of her grandparents telling her stories to her efforts in continuing this storytelling tradition with her two young sons. Drawing on her extensive knowledge of stories and the storytelling craft, she has provided customized storytelling consultancy services for museums, educational institutions and organizations.
Kamini has been commissioned to research and create storytelling content for various literary and storytelling festivals, animation projects, folklore publications as well as curated museum exhibitions. A founder member of the Storytelling Association (Singapore), she has served four terms as its President. As a storyteller, she has gained an international presence with invitations to Bangalore, Shillong, Edinburgh, Rome and Sydney.
In her many years of public storytelling to both adult and child audiences, she has observed the power of stories to touch hearts and to heal; her collaboration with a clinical psychiatrist in her recent work is a facet of her storytelling passion dedicated to exploring the role of stories and storytelling in counselling and healing. She will also be embarking on a pilot project to empower dementia-caregivers with storytelling skills. Her focus on reviving the oral tradition takes her this year on an exploratory journey to Malaysian indigenous tribes to share folktales and mythology, storyteller to storyteller.
Her passion for storytelling continues with her work in mentoring and nurturing individuals on their storytelling journey for she believes in building a community of storytellers. Kamini also facilitates ‘The Storytelling Intensive’ course for Performance students at college level.