Sita Brand | The Power of Story.
- Isobel Arden
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
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Meet Sita Brand
In this interview, Mark created Sita Brand's fantasy cultural year from the answers to some easy questions to which there were no wrong answers.
Mark had a magic wand and a time machine at his disposal, so expect some surprises, laughs, anecdotes and conversational detours.
There are people who collect things. Books. Stamps. Records. Sita Brand has spent much of her life collecting stories.
Not literally, although after more than three decades as a storyteller she has probably accumulated enough of them to fill a fairly ambitious library.
Sita Brand is a storyteller, artist, mindfulness teacher, writer and arts leader whose work sits somewhere between performance, folklore, education, cultural exchange and the slightly mysterious business of getting people to actually listen to one another.
Sita came to the UK as a teenager and went on to study Drama at university. Sita's earlier career included work in theatre and arts leadership in various roles such as director, performer, producer and writer. Her professional life developed through theatre before storytelling gradually became the place where many of her interests could meet.
A storyteller is not necessarily the first job people imagine when they think about a theatre graduate. There is no particularly obvious office, no standard career ladder and, unless things have changed dramatically, probably not much fluorescent lighting.
For Sita, though, storytelling offered something theatre alone couldn't. It could travel.
It could work in schools, theatres, libraries, communities and prisons. It could be intimate or public, traditional or experimental. It could hold history, humour, memory, politics and personal experience without needing to put everything into a neat category. Most importantly, it could be shared.
There is a sense of performance in Sita's storytelling, but her work isn't simply theatre without a script. She is interested in the relationship between storyteller and listener — the room, the audience, the atmosphere and the particular magic that happens when someone tells a story directly to another person.
Her storytelling repertoire draws on traditional myths and folktales as well as personal experience. Sita is interested in stories that have travelled. Stories that have survived. Stories that have changed slightly on the journey. Stories that still have something useful to say when they arrive in the present.
Her professional history includes work in arts development, heritage and cultural leadership. She has worked with Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund and served as a trustee of York Museums Trust.
Her work with Arts Council England included setting the vision for Decibel, a major programme designed to increase the profile of African, Asian and Caribbean artists in England.
That wider cultural experience is important because it places Sita's storytelling practice within a much larger understanding of the arts. She understands performance, but also the structures around it. She understands artists, audiences, organisations, funders and communities.
In 2010, Sita founded Settle Stories. It began as a volunteer-led storytelling festival and developed into a much broader arts organisation working across storytelling, education, heritage, artist development and community engagement with international reach.
Settle Stories has developed programmes for schools and families, holds storytelling events, delivers professional development and created digital storytelling resources. Its heritage work includes the W.R. Mitchell Archive, preserving oral histories and stories from the region. It also offers people the opportunity to book Sita for keynotes, workshops and performances.
Sita has also been interested in how technology can help stories reach wider audiences. Settle Stories' work has incorporated digital platforms, live streaming and new approaches to sharing traditional material, reflecting Sita's interest in finding contemporary ways to keep storytelling alive.
That balance — tradition without becoming trapped by tradition — is central to her work.
Alongside storytelling, Sita has developed a substantial practice in mindfulness and meditation.
She has more than 30 years of mindfulness meditation practice and has trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Her teaching has included mindfulness retreats as well as meditation work in prisons.
She also works as a Buddhist Chaplain.
At first glance, storytelling and mindfulness might seem like two entirely different careers. However, both depend on attention, require listening and ask people to slow down enough to notice what is actually happening.
Her current artistic practice includes painting inspired by Indian folk traditions and fairytales. Her artwork takes ideas from stories and translates them into a visual language, bringing together elements of her cultural heritage with the universal pull of folklore.
One of the strongest themes running through Sita's work is the value of voices that might otherwise be missed. That can mean traditional stories passed between generations or community histories.
Her work ultimately looks at storytelling not only as a performance skill but as something people can use in education, communication, leadership and personal development.
Today, her practice stretches from live storytelling and traditional tales to mindfulness, visual art, education, heritage and new ways of sharing stories with audiences.
Sita Brand's Fantasy Cultural Year ... with a magic wand and a time machine to hand.
Every Arts and Culture Network member is invited to embark on a Fantasy Cultural Year—an imaginary twelve-month journey designed around their passions, curiosity and imagination.
Sita Brand would tell lots of stories all over the world. The premise is wonderfully excessive: twelve storytelling festivals, different countries, different cultures, and a mission to encourage people to become more kind, compassionate and resilient.
There would be a television crew following her, a book somewhere in the future and, naturally, a TED Talk waiting at the other end.
Starting at Easter Island, for Sita, the attraction isn't simply the famous moai. She imagines meeting local storytellers, hearing their stories and finding ways to share them with people elsewhere.
From Easter Island, the fantasy journey expands across the world. Myanmar. Cambodia. Laos. India. Papua New Guinea. The destinations are deliberately varied, but there is a pattern behind them. Sita is drawn towards places where she can encounter different traditions, different ways of living and stories that audiences elsewhere may not routinely hear.
Her imagined festival becomes a meeting point. People arrive with their own histories and leave knowing a little more about somebody else's. There might be some light jazz.
There would be circus. And there would be “interesting people” having interesting conversations. She describes the festival she imagines as “eclectic and a little bit odd.”
In Myanmar, the fantasy year takes a turn towards dance. Sita imagines a performance drawing on East Asian movement traditions, including Japanese influences, while also leaving room for something more contemporary and experimental.
Dinner after the performance is a Mediterranean meal, somewhere around Lebanese or Syrian cuisine.
Then comes Cambodia — and a rather different kind of cultural experience. Sita chooses Kalaripayattu, the traditional martial art from Kerala in southern India. She had studied Kalaripayattu decades earlier and remembers being struck by the fact that it isn't only concerned with attack and defence. The tradition also incorporates healing.
Next comes Machu Picchu. She imagines an immersive digital gallery in which visitors could effectively step inside a painting.
The artwork would become three-dimensional, surrounding the audience with sound and movement.
The artist she chooses is Badri Narayan, whose work draws on Indian folk traditions and whose paintings Sita remembers from childhood.
Eventually, the fantasy year makes its way back to London.
Monday is music.
Tuesday is theatre.
Wednesday is musical theatre.
Thursday is ballet.
Friday is film.
Saturday, presumably, is when everyone catches their breath.
For theatre, she chooses Michael Frayn's Copenhagen.
For musical theatre, she would go back in time to experience the original production of Les Misérables.
For ballet, there is no hesitation: Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake.
And for film? An IMAX screen in Las Vegas. More specifically, The Sphere.
Because apparently a normal-sized screen has become insufficient by this stage.
Before Sita is sent off into the world to complete her twelve-month cultural adventure, there is one final challenge. A Hero Lunch. The rules are wonderfully open. The guest can be a historical figure, a fictional character, famous or otherwise invited for a 2 hour lunch with Sita.
She lands on Marina Abramović or perhaps the Buddha. Why choose? The two are invited.
Marina Abramović, whose work has pushed performance art towards questions of presence, endurance, attention and the relationship between artist and audience.
The Buddha, whose teachings have profoundly influenced Sita's own interest in mindfulness and meditation.
And Sita herself, sitting between two very different figures whose work, in completely different ways, asks people to pay attention.
Sita Brand's contact details.
LinkedIn Website Email
Settle Stories website
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Mark Walmsley FRSA FCIM AGSM
Chief Culture Vulture
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