Cantastoria

In recent times, this is still performed by Chitrakar women from West Bengal, India.In Tibet, this was known as ma-ni-pa and in other parts of China this was known as pien.

In Japan, cantastoria appears as etoki (絵解) or emaki (絵巻) in the form of hanging scrolls divided into separate panels, foreshadowing the popular modern manga, or Japanese comics.

In the 20th century, Japanese candymen on bicycles would bring serial shows called kamishibai (紙芝居) where the story was told on a series of changing pictures that slid in and out of an open-framed box.

These were called "romances de ciego [es]" (blind man stories).The singing bench migrated northward to Central and Northern Europe where it served as sensationalist quasi-news about murder, fires, death, affairs, sex and scandals.

In Germany itinerant balladeers performed Moritat or Bänkelsang (bench song) banner shows for four centuries until the Nazis banned the practice in the 1940s.