About Me
We choose the story we tell. Every day.
My lifelong drive has been to weave narratives that can help people and society transform.
Born in London, in my teens I started designing immersive educational experiences for younger children as part of a progressive Jewish youth movement. After studying Literature at Cambridge University I toured the UK giving seminars at schools, learning how to engage with young people of wildly different backgrounds.
A story got me stuck in Buenos Aires when I was travelling around the world. A rumour of an elderly Holocaust Survivor living alone on an island at the end of the world propelled me and a friend to make a documentary to find her. I was fascinated with testimony and how it must be both recorded, and reinterpreted to stay alive. It brought me back to the story of my own late father – who survived the Nazi concentration camps as a small child and lived a crazed life fuelled by unprocessed trauma.
As editor of city magazines in three continents, brand copywriter, TV news scriptwriter, and documentary script-editor, among other gigs, I’ve danced with words and stories in all kinds of ways – but always with audience in mind.
Aside from London I’ve lived in Manchester, Paris, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Berlin, and now Brussels. En route I picked up languages, recipes, a few diseases, and an enduring craving to encounter new cultures and keep learning about humanity.
In 2017, disturbed by politics, I founded my ethical storytelling agency to support progressive changemakers. I’ve worked closely with organizations like UNHCR, Greenpeace, WWF, and more, helping shape narratives using empathy for action.
Recently, I took to stage to bring storytelling more directly to audiences. My one-man show Pieces of a Man explores my late Holocaust Survivor father’s legacy and how storytelling can help us heal trauma and live better. It’s toured around Europe and North America, reaching all kinds of communities.
In development, my upcoming show, Fatherload deals with how dads can define our place amid the chaos of modern masculinity and a maelstrom of pressures. Alongside these shows I have designed interactive storytelling workshops guiding people to confront such issues on their own part with creativity and joy.
My passion is to bring people together, to break barriers, and help unlock the empathy, creativity, and honestly required for a more just and harmonious world.
CONTACT
Love to hear from you.
david [dot] labi [at] gmail [.] com