Storytelling and Performance in Diorama Galleries

Abstract

This chapter is a practitioner based description of interaction between groups and individuals in front of and with room sized diorama at the Powell-Cotton Museum. Over the past five years performance and storytelling have been a method through which audiences are engaged through multiple intelligences. Different types of performance: Traditional storytelling, storytelling from the displays, and natural history storytelling are described along with the learning objectives that they are intended to elicit. This is very much storytelling with a purpose. The purpose can be many fold and adapted both to the intended messages and audiences.

Conclusion

Stories about dioramas, their specimens and their derivation are effective means of delivering information both biological and cultural to audiences from a diverse range of backgrounds. Delivering the stories through both dioramas and museum theatre, which are natural partners as both have a story to impart in their particular way, provides visitors with more ways of making sense of exhibits. This powerful combination forms a new type of museum experience, much more than standing in front of a diorama looking and commenting.