Vayu Naidu

Vayu Naidu (born 1957) is a British Indian storyteller, performer and writer.[1] The author of Sita's Ascent and Under the Banyam, she is credited with coining the term 'performance storytelling'.[2]

Life

At the age of 27 Naidu was in an accident which left her without speech. She recovered her speech, which she needed for theatre, through storytelling.[2]

In 1994 she received a PhD in oral tradition as performance from the University of Leeds.[1]

In her 1996-7 production Kathasuniascea, she used music and movement to retell traditional stories from India, Nigeria and Ireland. Parting Company (1997) was a collaboration with composer Judith Weir, a celebration of Indian and European mythologies marking fifty years since Indian independence. Future' Perfect (2000) was another collaboration with Weir for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.[1]

Naidu moved to Canterbury in 2000. She was awarded an AHRB fellowship from the University of Kent for a project entitled The Presence of Absences: Exploring Technique and Manifestation in the Contemporary Performance Storyteller.[1]

Her novel Sita's Ascent is a retelling of the epic Ramayana.[3]

In 2019 Naidu accepted an International Excellence award at London Book Fair on behalf of children's books company Tulika Publishers.[4] She has published several collections of stories for children, which have also been used in the Channel 4 animation Biswas.[1] She has also narrated several audiobooks by Kishwar Desai.

Works

Books

  • The empty vessel: storytelling and the healing arc of narrative. London: Jessica Kingsley publishers.
  • Stories from India. Hove: Wayland, 2000. Illustrated by Rebecca Gryspeerdt.
  • Traditional Stories from India, 2006. London: Hodder Wayland, 2006. Illustrated by Rebecca Gryspeerdt.
  • Sita's ascent. New Delhi; New York: Penguin Books.
  • The sari of Surya Vilas South Melbourne, Victoria: Affirm Press, 2017.

Audiobooks

  • (narrator) Witness the Night by Kishwar Desai. 2010.
  • (narrator) The sea of innocence by Kishwar Desai. 2014
  • (narrator, with Penelope Rawlins, Sam Dastor and Lyndam Gregory) Origins of love by Kishwar Desai. 2014.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Elaine Aston (2002). "Naidu, Vayu". In Alison Donnell (ed.). Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. Routledge. p. 292. ISBN 978-1-134-70025-7.
  2. ^ a b "Weaving words, telling tales". The Hindu. 14 October 2016. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  3. ^ Anusha Parthasarathy (7 February 2013). "Back to the epic". The Hindu. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  4. ^ "Tulika Publishers wins International Excellence Award at London Book Fair". scroll.in. 14 May 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2021.