In order to carry on traditional tales into the future we need to understand how the oral tradition works, how stories evolve across centuries, and what it is that we want to pass on through them to the next generation. This workshop focuses on the skills, tools, and repertoire of traditional tellers and how they can be applied to contemporary contexts such as stage performance, organized events, and digital storytelling. We will also touch on the topics of representation, ethics, and copyright.

Bio:
Csenge Virág Zalka is a storyteller and author from Hungary. She travels the world, telling folktales, myths and epics in three languages. She holds an MA in Storytelling and a PhD in Culture Studies; her area of research is the intersection of traditional storytelling and contemporary popular culture.
http://www.zalkacsenge.hu/

Stepping into online ST is stepping away from tradition, the little voice in the head whispered. Or is it? Could this be a way forward for our art? Blasting through screens and into the world?
With 1001+ recorded stories, Storytime has its ideas of their own to share. Join us for a fascinating talk of; the WHY´s, and HOW´s, of choice of material, demands of the teller, technology, bling-bling, editing and maybe even marketing.
https://fortaelletid.dk/

Bio:
Kasper Sørensen has been a storyteller for 29 years. He has extensive experience in teaching storytelling within the private and public sector in Denmark and beyond the Danish borders, at more than 2.300 events. He is founder of BestTellers and Fortælletid/Storytime, an online portal with more than a thousand tales.

Storytelling has been a central part of the free schools in Denmark for more than 179 years. The workshop has several focuspoints.

Why are we telling stories and what are we telling? Why and how are we making the children and young people to storytellers?

The motto of the workshop is, storytelling is a craft, you are only learning it, by doing it. There will be a wide range of different storytelling-exercises, which will be followed by small bits of theory.

Bio:
Bent Hansen has worked with storytelling on a professional level for more than 25 years and has also been a storyteller-teacher for the same period. He is teaching storytelling at the Independent Academy for Free School Teaching and at the diploma of education in narrative culture, narration and storytelling.

Bent Hansen - Ollerup Frilæreskole: http://fabulatoriet.dk/index.html

In this workshop we will take you through three of our Hans Christian Andersen learning tours. By exploring these learning tours, we will introduce different methods and means, that we use in our communication and teachings about (or with) Andersen.
The three learning tours are:
“Theatre tour”, “A garden fairy tale” and “Andersen’s perspective”. We will talk about the written fairy tale’s transformation into vivid storytelling and this transformation’s importance when you want children to discover their own creating abilities. We go through the different positions, which our communicators deliberately and consciously perform when hosting school classes, to facilitate an experience, that matches our ambition.
Furthermore, we touch on how Andersen’s unique way storytelling is turned into teaching and storytelling methods in several ways in each of our learning tours.
Much of this is introduced through one of our most important teaching techniques “philosophical dialogue”, which is then demonstrated firsthand.

Bio:
Rikke Jahn Svinding, Artistic Manager, Ville Vau, H.C. Andersens Museum.
As head of the artistic content Rikke facilitates the overall experience when guests are visiting Ville Vau in H. C. Andersen Museum. She has a background as an actress and a performer and have refined the work with art and children within the frame of Andersen since 2008.

Mette Kiilerich, Curator at the children and education’s department at Odense City Museums.
Mette Kiilerich has a Master’s degree in Culture and Communication. She is the lead developer of all the new learning tours at the new Hans Christian Andersen Museum. Mette specializes in using Hans Christian Andersen’s unique take on storytelling when creating learning experiences for children.

In this workshop Marianne Christensen will guide you through some exercises to experience how working with stories can change imagination and perception. You will be inspired to work with storytelling in new ways, with you own and others’ stories. We use life stories, tales and props.

BIO:

Marianne Christensen, born 1954, storyteller, teacher and life coach. She has more than 20 years of experience working with storytelling as a path for transforming life stories, trauma and stuck situations.

Climate change and loss of biodiversity is the greatest challenge of our time. Storytelling is a crucial tool to engage people and make them act - and we all need to act fast! Themes of the workshop: The importance of storytelling in the green transformation. How to create and find stories that awaken people. How to reach new, different and bigger audiences. How to build a sustainable business as storyteller.

BIO

Trine Krarup supports the green transformation with storytelling. Her heart beats for our blue and green planet, and her mission is to inspire people to act sustainably. She has a background in communications and was Managing Director in a consultancy company before she became a storyteller.

Contemporary storytelling is a powerfull tool in a constantly changing world. We look at the different methods behind contemporary storytelling. How do we create stories that derive from our own experience, and at the same time make room for identification and reflection in the mind audiences. Why a dynamic and forward moving storyline is essential. How changing small details in each performance situation makes it possible for the audience to feel that we are telling only for them?

Bio:
Aske Ebbesen is one of the storytellers on the Danish scene, who from the beginning of his career has strived to create stories with a new take on everyday problems of modern life. Cutting to the core of the story, he performs with a strong presence and comic relief.

Young Storytellers: we stand in the middle Imagine a chain, each and every link of it representing a generation of Storytellers, from the forefathers of storytelling stretching through time until us: the “Young Storytellers”.
We look in front of us and see our teachers and mentors moving forward pulling and making way for us behind them. But we are not the last links, we stand in the middle: behind us the next generations of young storytellers that will look towards us as “older” and “more experienced”.
As our teacher stretched their hands to pull us up to form a new link, we too have our duty towards those future “young Storytellers” that will join the chain, and that moment can be now.
In Denmark many schools and youth centres use Storytelling as a tool for teaching. For those students and youths, Storytelling is an asset and a possible profession, they are the people that will one day say “I want to be a Storyteller''. Let's meet with them and share experiences, expectations, stories; Let's tell them about our efforts and let's answer their questions, let's use their requests and suggestions as a guide to pave the path for our future. They are our mirror: our gains will one day be their own and their dreams are ours too.

Bio

Mattia Di Pierro is a young storyteller from the South of Italy. In 2012 he moved to Rome to join drama school and began his journey as a Storyteller in 2014. Nowadays he collaborates with different groups and associations to promote Storytelling events in Bolzano, Florence and Rome. In 2018 he founded “Vulture Storytelling” a small festival promoting the art of Storytelling in Basilicata (his region of Origin).

Kathleen Rappolt and Mia Verbeelen rediscovered the pleasure of bilingual storytelling during the first Corona lock down. They asked themselves whether it is possible to tell bilingual stories together via ZOOM despite a distance of 722 km (Berlin - Antwerp).

They would like to share this pleasure and their previous experiences with bilingual storytelling with others.

In the workshop they highlight different methods to convey stories in multiple languages in a playfully way. Furthermore, they will give tips on online tandem storytelling and share their experience with sign language (mother tongue) tandem storytelling. They actively work with the participants present and thus create a fascinating exchange. There will be also space for sharing tips and tricks with each other.

BIO 

 Mia Verbeelen is working as a storyteller since 1992. Besides storyteller she is also a co-organiser of storytelling festivals in the Netherlands and Flanders, the Dutch part of Belgium. Since 2007 Mia is member of the staff at the Vertelacademie in Utrecht and give courses in NL and B. In 2006 she returned to her hometown Antwerp in Belgium, after 30 years living in NL. There she had a part-time job as a storyteller for children in a beautiful fairytale-house in the middle of a parc, near the centre of Antwerp. She worked on bilingual stories with French, Canadian, Finish and German storytellers. In 2015 she was Storytelling Ambassador for the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium).  Since 2020 she is retired, but full of energy to run her own storytelling-activities in her wonderful venue, ‘Storytellingcastle ‘The Golden Mirror’ in Antwerp.

Kathleen Rappolt is a freelance storyteller since 2012 and based in Berlin. She studied Theatre Education (M.A.) and Künstlerisches Erzählen – Storytelling in Art and Education at the Berlin University of Arts. She also has a bachelor’s in childhood education.She has been involved in the Berlin school project ErzählZeit since 2012 and in the project, Storytelling Creates Language for children whose mother tongue is not German since 2017. She also teaches storytelling at the Berlin University of the Arts and offers basic storytelling workshops for educators.  From 2015 to 2019 she was Artistic Director of the Erzählbühne Berlin (Erzählkunst e.V.).  Always interested in new forms and formats, Kathleen developed five bilingual zoom storytelling tandems together with international colleagues during first Corona lock down. Most recently she worked together with a deaf tandem partner and developed a stage program in sign language (visual venacular) and spoken language. 

This workshop will be an occasion to learn some elements from the traditional storytelling techniques of the Middle East, such as the Turkish meddah and the Persian shahnameh. You will learn how to use simple props, like the stick and scarf during storytelling; when to take something 'ready to use' and introduce traditional clichés as formulas; when to introduce digressions and improvise on the spur of the moment. For the special purpose of practice, we will be inviting the master of anecdotes, Hodja Nasreddin himself.

BIO:

Agnieszka Ayşen Kaim, PhD is the Polish turcologist of a Turkish origin. Being  often involved in  various theatrical and storytelling projects during her academic life she combined Turkish studies with practice of storyteller. She is a member of a pioneer Polish Storytellers Association ‘Grupa Studnia O’. She worked within the international storytelling projects as the coordinator:  MYTHOS – My Traditional Heritage – Grundtvig, 2010-2012),“Tales & Wanderers” bringing together Polish and Turkish artists (2014, Polish - Turkish Project supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 2013-2014. She is a member of EC of FEST from 2019. Books : Bahar znaczy Wiosna [Bahar means Spring, 2015] , "Meddah – turecki teatr jednego aktora. Spotkanie tradycji kultury ustnej z kulturą widowiskową" [Meddah - Turkish One Man Theatre: Oral Literature Meets Performing Culture, 2020]; "Ludzie dwóch kultur – wybrane przypadki transgresji kulturowej Polaków w Imperium Osmańskim w XVII, XVIII i XIX wieku" [People of Two Cultures - selected cases of cultural transgression of Poles in the Ottoman Empire (17th–19th c.), 2020].

Our lecture may have left you wondering how to implement the Competence Level Framework (CLF) in your teaching, your coaching or your own development as a storyteller. In this workshop we'll work together to assess

• the training(s) or workshop(s) you teach
• the strengths and needs of a storyteller you're coaching
• your own work as a storyteller

in terms of the CLF.
We'll use the toolbox of Storytelling in 8 Colours and build the levels from there. You'll get acquainted with the CLF by using it. You'll find strong points and blind spots and you'll get to know an easy way to compare your work with that of others.
We hope the CLF will inspire you to further develop your training, your telling and those of others.

Bio Frank Belt

It was in his 18 year career as a primary school teacher and teachers’ coach that Frank got to know storytelling. The positive effect storytelling had on children made him take part in his first storytelling training. This was followed by training at the Dutch Vertelacademie and the Flemish SAMWD Lier. Nowadays he is active as a storyteller performing in theatres and schools and at festivals. In workshops he tries to pass on his enthusiasm for the power of imagination.

Frank is a member of the Dutch Stichting Schoolverteller which aims at giving storytelling it’s place in (primary) education.

www.opverhaal.nl

Bio Paul Groos

Originally (and still) a teacher of Latin and Ancient Greek, Paul discovered the power of storytelling in front of the classroom. He was subsequently educated at the Dutch Storytelling Academy, at the Academy in Lier and at several international workshops. Telling to adolescents from Greek myth is what he loves best and does most. Nothing beats thirty or more pairs of adolescent ears listening raptly to ancient tales. He strongly believes that adolescents are overlooked as story listeners and as storytellers and so he teaches storytelling workshops in Dutch and Flemish schools, both to teachers and to their students.

www.vertellerpaul.nl -

This workshop is intended as a passage to an open understanding of the nature of the stories that we create and that creates us. The simple structure connects to share and refine personal stories through body, voice and presence. The Story Play concept has emerged from 30 years of practicing creative storytelling. What happens to the dialog between the Storyteller and the listener if everybody in the room is invited to add their intelligences to what’s possible to experience in the room?

BIO:

Jesper la Cour is one of Denmark’s most experienced Storytellers. His wide range in his physical and dialogical style has included children, youth and adults in thousands of performances on half of the globe. Story Play has been developed through a funding by the Danish Arts Foundation.

The main purpose of the FEST "Ambassador Project“ has been to strengthen oral storytelling in Europe following the vision of „professionalisation of storytelling“ and "creating national storytelling networks". As the FEST ambassadors appointed come only from few countries (the Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Poland, England) the idea of diplomacy for storytelling in more countries of Europe could be the next step.

Individual FEST Ambassadors’ actions have followed each country' s situation and needs, model of culture, communication culture etc. Unexpected situation of Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021 resulted in replacement of planned activities with others and redefining priorities. But even thought the work of Ambassadors has been continued. To maintain these activities is important to keep creating a best practice guide of diplomacy for storytelling as an art, at least a collection of expertise for other countries that are seeking ways to create more sustainable structures on a national level, ways to connect and create network, to start and maintain. Few years of experience of this project can give an outline of competence model for a good ambassador or curator of storytelling. During FEST conference in Denmark 2021, in order to support in answering these questions, we will set an Ambassador help desk to give you a tip-off how you look at the future beyond this project.

BIO:

Maria Vrachionidou is a linguist (graduate, University of Thessaloniki), a social anthropologist (PhD, University of Ioannina) and a storyteller (graduate, School of Storytelling Art, Athens). She has participated in ethnographic and linguistic research projects, she has studied several languages ​​(Western European, Slavic, non-European) and she has been involved with research on cultural and symbolic anthropology. Since 1999 she has been working at the Research Center for Modern Greek dialects and idioms of the Academy of Athens and since 2011 she has been teaching in the School of Storytelling Art. She is also the vice president of the Board of MYTHOS organization and in 2019 she has been selected as the FEST Ambassador for Greece. Since 2010 she has been involved in the theoretical study and research of storytelling and in the same time she has participated in many storytelling performances in Greece and abroad. She has published numerous books and articles on language, anthropology, storytelling and their connection.

Agnieszka Aysen Kaim PhD. is the Polish turcologist of a Turkish origin. Being  often involved in  various theatrical and storytelling projects during her academic life she combined Turkish studies with practice of storyteller. She is a member of a pioneer Polish Storytellers Association ‘Grupa Studnia O’. She worked within the international storytelling projects as the coordinator:  MYTHOS – My Traditional Heritage – Grundtvig, 2010-2012),“Tales & Wanderers” bringing together Polish and Turkish artists (2014, Polish - Turkish Project supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 2013-2014. She is a member of EC of FEST from 2019. Books : Bahar znaczy Wiosna [Bahar means Spring, 2015] , "Meddah – turecki teatr jednego aktora. Spotkanie tradycji kultury ustnej z kulturą widowiskową" [Meddah - Turkish One Man Theatre: Oral Literature Meets Performing Culture, 2020]; "Ludzie dwóch kultur – wybrane przypadki transgresji kulturowej Polaków w Imperium Osmańskim w XVII, XVIII i XIX wieku" [People of Two Cultures - selected cases of cultural transgression of Poles in the Ottoman Empire (17th–19th c.), 2020].

BIO:

Abbi Patrix is a French storyteller who tells  in both French and english. Sharing dual French and Norwegian heritage Abbi has broad multi-disciplinary experience in theatre, music and movement. His passion for these disciplines lead him to found the “Compagnie du Cercle” in 1980, which was the first french collective of storytellers.

In his performances Abbi interweaves personal and contemporary tales with traditional stories, real life stories, tales of voyages, personal memories and literary texts.

From 2003 to 2015 Abbi co-directed La Maison du Conte and founded Le Labo – a collective and multidisciplinary research space for improvisation and performance. He regularly performs with other tellers, from France, Europe and Africa.

He is a founding member of FEST, the Federation for European Storytelling.

Abbi Patrix is director of Mix Up, a storytelling festival held in March aroud worldstorytelling day in Paris and presents performances from artists coming from European countries.

He now works closely with a national experimental music institute, La Muse en Circuit (centre national de création musicale), directed by Wilfried Wendling.Together they created

FAKE : a nomadic performance where audience hears in their headphones Peer Gynt story mixed with music loops, in situ.

Project Fairytale Studio (Zavod Divja misel, Slovenia) is designed as a laboratory project which, with slow steps and in continuous dialogue with children, education and other professionals, explores how children and adults socialise, get to know one another, communicate and learn through stories. Particular focus of the project is the development of carefully considered and visually accomplished contexts, narrative elements and games supporting and encouraging autonomous storytelling in children. At the same time, they develop a practically tested and theoretically supported educational methodology intended to help and inspire professionals in education and parents who would like to incorporate storytelling into their teaching process and family life.

In 2021 in collaboration with awarded illustrator and designer three storytelling devices were developed. The participants of the workshop will get to know the theoretical and background of them and the methodology of use. The workshop would like to inspire discussion and possible uses of stories and games for storytellers, when working with children.

BIO

Špela Frlic is a storyteller, artistic director of Slovenian storytelling festival and head of children program in House of reading, writing and storytelling Vodnikova domačija Šiška. Her master degree on contemporary storytelling in Slovenia was, as first book on this topic in Slovenia, published in 2020. In collaboration with animators, illustrators, designers, poets and writers she develops new ways of staging stories and engaging children into storytelling.  

When diving into the details of Hans Christian Andersen’s manuscripts – the sketches, drafts and fair copies of the fairy tales – you get an insight into the creative process of the author and the ways that he worked with shaping his narration, sharpening his language and refining the role of the narrator. The keynote will present examples from both famous and lesser known fairytales – derived from new research in connection with the digital publication of the Andersen manuscripts that has been preserved in public and private, danish and international archives.

Bio:

Ane Grum-Schwensen, PhD, is an Associate professor at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark. She directs the project “Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories – the digital manuscript edition” and has worked as a curator at The Hans Christian Andersen Museum.

The Competence Level Framework (CLF) for Storytellers is a continuation of the competence model entitled Storytelling in 8 Colours, developed by Veva Gérard. This CLF describes the twenty competences from the main domains on eight different levels in terms of knowledge, activities and attitudes. It enables trainers to assess the level of their courses and storytellers to determine the level of their competences. It also helps teachers in regular education to introduce storytelling exercises in their classrooms. It will provide a universal language to assess storytelling work, useable across Europe.
The CLF was developed by Paul Groos and Frank Belt upon groundwork done by Guy Tilkin, Luis ???, the members of the Stichting Schoolverteller and of course Veva Gerard herself in FEST's Strand 3.
In this brief, practical and colourful lecture Frank and Paul will introduce the current version of the CLF, explain about the dilemma's and choices involved in its development and give examples of how it can be used by individual tellers, schools and teachers.

 BIO

Frank Belt

It was in his 18 year career as a primary school teacher and teachers’ coach that Frank got to know storytelling. The positive effect storytelling had on children made him take part in his first storytelling training. This was followed by training at the Dutch Vertelacademie and the Flemish SAMWD Lier. Nowadays he is active as a storyteller performing in theatres and schools and at festivals. In workshops he tries to pass on his enthusiasm for the power of imagination.

Frank is a member of the Dutch Stichting Schoolverteller which aims at giving storytelling it’s place in (primary) education.

www.opverhaal.nl

Paul Groos

Originally (and still) a teacher of Latin and Ancient Greek, Paul discovered the power of storytelling in front of the classroom. He was subsequently educated at the Dutch Storytelling Academy, at the Academy in Lier and at several international workshops. Telling to adolescents from Greek myth is what he loves best and does most. Nothing beats thirty or more pairs of adolescent ears listening raptly to ancient tales. He strongly believes that adolescents are overlooked as story listeners and as storytellers and so he teaches storytelling workshops in Dutch and Flemish schools, both to teachers and to their students.

www.vertellerpaul.nl

Why bother listening to a storyteller when you can read books, see stories enacted on stage, be watching them at the movies or – more conveniently – have them streamed to your tablet? What’s the point of oral storytelling? In this lecture Göran Hemberg proposes an answer, based on his master’s thesis “Shared Presence”.

Hemberg anchors his reflections in the FEST competence model “Storytelling in 8 colours” and the FEST video “What’s unique about storytelling?” – both presented at the last conference in Euregio Maas-Rhein 2019. He finds that professional oral storytelling is a unique form of art, in so far as an excellent storyteller manages to perform a peculiar balancing act: the teller turns directly to her listeners – a form of interaction here and now, maintained during the telling – while simultaneously bringing the story to life in an imagined taleworld.

A masterful narrator manages to share her presence with the audience both in the telling room and the taleworld. By framing the situation in this way, the teller realizes an aesthetic value specific to storytelling. Looking at it from an ethical point of view, good storytelling is its own end. It forms part of a good life. 

BIO

Göran Hemberg participated in the Swedish storytelling revival in the early 1990s. Since then, he has performed as a professional storyteller at home and internationally. Besides bringing to life our earliest oral cultural heritage, he has focused on the art of turning memories into life stories. He has a background as a practical philosopher with a special focus on democratic dilemmas. He arranges “Teller’s Salons” aimed at matching good stories with good conversations. He is a member of Fabula Storytelling Company and presently much committed to coaching.

Author: Mimesis Heidi Dahlsveen, storyteller and associate professor in oral storytelling,

OsloMet Metropolitan university - E-mail:

abstract:

This performance paper is based on a carried out in 2020 in virtual reality, when many of us had our homes converted into a working place as a result of the pandemic. The performance paper takes a closer look at what happens when one must practice performative art in virtual reality and asks the simple question: What to do when mimesis is in crisis? Mimesis is here seen both as a process and tools used in oral storytelling as a performative art. Nicolas Bourriaud argues that the reality of the contemporary is montages, where one understands temporary versions of reality. The aesthetics are about editing this montage into works of art (Bourriaud, 2009, s. 35). According to Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), the experience of a work of art in a here and now situation is called the aura of art. The aura is a one-time happening, when the work is mass produced, it loses its aura (Karlsen, 1991, s. 24). Technology makes you feel like exile from yourself (Benjamin, 1991, s. 48) and leads to a vulgarization and preservation where the personality is being cultivated (Benjamin, 1991, s. 52). In the analysis of the actions the project, the author has worked topologically and discusses and perform virtual reality through three topics: physical versus digital performative practice, place and time. In the paper performance, the author also refers to the chronotrope as a transition in artistic practice. The chronotrope is a term developed by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) and is a way of understanding experiences. The chronotype is an artistic grip (Steinby, s. 106) and at the same time a processing of something that has already been given (Kleppe, s. 37).

Keywords: virtual reality, oral storytelling, practice, digitalization, pandemic, artistic research, performative

Sources

Kleppe, S. L. (u.d.). The chronotope and the south.

Steinby, L. (u.d.). Bakhtin's concept of the chronotope: the viewpoint of an acting subject.

Bourriaud, N. (2009). Precarious Constructions Answer to Jacques Rancière on Art and Politics. Open 2009 No. 17, 20-37.

Karlsen, T. (1991). Walter Benjamin. I W. Benjamin, Kunstverket i reproduksjonsalderen Essays i utvalg av en av vår tids betydligste og mest allsidige kritikere (ss. 9-32). Oslo: Gyldendal norsk forlag.

Benjamin, W. (1991). Kunstverket i reproduksjonsalderen Essays i utvalg av en av vår tids betydeligste og mest allsidige kritikere. Oslo: Gyldendal norsk forlag.

BIO:

Mimesis Heidi Dahlsveen has worked as a storyteller since 1996 both at national and abroad. She has participated in a number of international festivals and in two EU projects that deal with oral storytelling. She has sold performances to the cultural rugsack and toured internationally.

She is the associate professor in oral storytelling at Oslomet – metropolitan university in Oslo, Norway and in 2008 she published the book "Introduction to oral storytelling", Universitetsforlaget. In 2019 she came with her second book on the same topic. She has written several academic articles on oral storytelling, where she uses artistic research as an input to understand oral storytelling and narratives. Her focus is on letting the traditional narratives shed light on contemporary themes.

BIO:

Mimesis Heidi Dahlsveen has worked as a storyteller since 1996 both at national and abroad. She has participated in a number of international festivals and in two EU projects that deal with oral storytelling. She has sold performances to the cultural rugsack and toured internationally.

She is the associate professor in oral storytelling at Oslomet – metropolitan university in Oslo, Norway and in 2008 she published the book "Introduction to oral storytelling", Universitetsforlaget. In 2019 she came with her second book on the same topic. She has written several academic articles on oral storytelling, where she uses artistic research as an input to understand oral storytelling and narratives. Her focus is on letting the traditional narratives shed light on contemporary themes.