Call for International Storytelling Festival Primavera de Cuento (La Habana, Cuba)

CONVOCATORIA 2019            

El Foro de Narración Oral del Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso y el Proyecto NarrArte convocan a la décima edición del Festival Primavera de Cuentos en La Habana, Cuba, del 17 al 23 de marzo, con los auspicios del Centro de Teatro, del Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso, del Consejo de las Artes Escénicas y de otras prestigiosas instituciones y entidades culturales de la Capital.  Una vez más, Primavera de Cuentos reunirá a importantes narradores orales cubanos y del mundo para festejar el 20 de marzo, Día Internacional de la Narración Oral.

Primavera de Cuentos es un festival sin fines de lucro, que promueve como línea artística principal la participación de narradores que privilegian en sus presentaciones los recursos expresivos propios de este oficio milenario: la palabra, la voz y los gestos, en una fuerte apelación al imaginario y en intensa relación con el público, esencia del arte de la palabra viva.

La participación de los narradores extranjeros está planteada en términos de INTERCAMBIO CULTURAL y cada narrador asumirá sus gastos de pasaje internacional y estancia, ya que no contamos con presupuesto para esos fines.  A quienes lo soliciten, podemos enviarles una invitación oficial para gestionar subvención económica con instituciones de su país. 

La programación artística estará dirigida a todos los públicos y mantiene su estructura habitual con espectáculos unipersonales y contadas colectivas o de grupos.  Quienes deseen contar con niños, deberán especificarlo en su planilla de inscripción.  La programación central para jóvenes y adultos será en horarios de la tarde-noche, y están previstas contadas en otros espacios colaterales y en otros horarios.

Para los narradores extranjeros la duración máxima de los espectáculos unipersonales será de 30 minutos, pero serán aceptadas propuestas de 15 y 20 minutos. Para los espectáculos de grupo regirá también el tiempo límite máximo antes mencionado.  Recomendamos que quienes vengan con otros integrantes de su grupo, conformen una contada grupal.  Aquellos narradores que hayan asistido varias veces en ocasiones recientes con espectáculos unipersonales, serán programados en contadas colectivas, para favorecer la fluidez de la programación y dejar margen a quienes vienen por primera vez. 

En su gran mayoría, los narradores cubanos estarán programados en contadas colectivas y los tiempos serán similares a los asignados a los narradores extranjeros, detallados en el párrafo anterior.  En algunos casos, por la trascendencia de sus propuestas, podrán presentar fragmentos de espectáculos unipersonales o de grupos, con una duración máxima entre 20 y 30 minutos.

Dada la extraordinaria acogida que ha tenido el concurso Contar la vida, volveremos a incluirlo en el programa oficial.  Podrán participar narradores que deseen compartir anécdotas personales o hechos que, por su fuerza dramática o humorística, hayan quedado en su memoria.  Se adjunta a esta Convocatoria las bases del Concurso.

Como parte de las actividades del Aula de Teoría y Pensamiento del Foro, habrá un encuentro teórico, para el que se pueden proponer intervenciones de 20 minutos, sobre algún tema o práctica de interés relacionado con la narración oral, con un tiempo final dedicado a comentarios y respuestas a preguntas.  En la semana anterior al Festival se impartirá el Taller Aprendiendo a contar cuentos, para quienes quieran iniciarse en el conocimiento de la teoría y la técnica del arte de la palabra viva.

Los interesados en participar en Primavera de Cuentos 2019, que aún no lo hayan hecho en atención al PRIMER AVISO, deberán responder a esta CONVOCATORIA antes del 30 de noviembre de 2018 enviando el formulario de inscripción adjunto (con todos los datos que se solicitan y su pasaporte vigente escaneado, para trámites de visado) a Mayra Navarro, Directora del Festival y del Proyecto NarrArte por el correo mayfred@cubarte.cult.cu; y/o Beatriz Quintana, asistente de dirección, a todotelocuentabetty@gmail.com   

La inscripción no quedará firme hasta tanto no se reciban todos los datos solicitados.  

MEXICO: Leo Leo participates in 7th International Festival "Stories to Change the World" 2017, June 21st

Leo Leo

Leo Leo se une al festival "Historias para cambiar el mundo", con la finalidad de construir un mundo mejor a través de la palabra y de los cuentos.

Únete a esta iniciativa el próximo 21 de junio a las 17:00 hrs. en nuestras instalaciones en una sesión de #bebeteca totalmente gratuita. #YoLeoConAmor 📖💙

"Stories to Change the World" June 21, 2013.

We would like to count on you to join us in participating in the annual celebration "Stories to Change the World", to be held, as every year, on June 21, 2013.

Last year, 2012, over 350 storytellers from 30 countries on five continents participated, nearly 15% more than in the first celebration held in 2011. You can tell in schools, theaters, cultural centers, street corners, universities, buses, oil platforms, ships, dormitories, train stations, or pubs. Any site is suitable for storytelling. Any time is a proper time for fighting against inequality, injustice, racism and ignorance. That is the meaning, the message and the objective of "Stories to Change the World". And that's what we are counting on you for.

When you know the venue, the city, the country, the people who are telling stories, the time and date (even better if it's June 21), send us the information at red@cuentacuentos.eu and we will post it on the blog www.historiasparacambiarelmundo.blogspot.com . If you also send us a photo, even better. We´ll post it on the blog too.

Together we can make a better world by telling stories. No one can stop us trying. We just have to get the word engine running. Get a hug full of tales and stories,

International Storytelling Network (RIC) 
Red Internacional de Cuentacuentos
www.cuentacuentos.eu


historiasparacambiarelmundo.blogspot.com

RedInternacionaldeCuentacuentos
InternationalStorytellingNetwork


RedCuentacuento

RedCuentacuentos

World Storytelling Day, 20 March

The Snake and the Firefly, folktale

There was once a firefly who liked to fly among the trees in a jungle.

One day, a snake came along and looked at the firefly flying around, working, eating, and shining with its great green light.

The snake didn’t have much to do, though, so he decided to chase the firefly around to eat him…

First just keeping a watchful eye, then slithering softly along and lastly chasing rapidly around.

The firefly flew, and flew, and flew as fast as those little wings could take him, but eventually grew tired and fell to the ground, where the snake was awaiting.

Before the snake could eat him, he pleaded to ask a few questions, to which the snake replied: “Hmm… I don’t usually give this privilege to my food, but go ahead”.

The firefly then asked “Am I in your food chain?”, and the snake answered “No…”.

“Are you hungry?” mumbled the defenceless little firefly. “Not really, no” said the vicious snake.

“Then why do you want to eat me?” whispered the firefly, to which the snake stated clearly

“Because I just can’t stand to see you shine!”

---

Keep in mind that from time to time we find snakes.

5th Annual Trickster Tales: A Night of Storytelling, (WA, USA)

5th Annual Trickster Tales: A Night of Storytelling
April Fool’s Day (Monday, April 1) – 6:30-9:30pm
Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
2333 San Juan Ave., Port Townsend, WA 98368
$12-25 Suggested Donation for this Boiler Room Benefit

They engage in one of the oldest acts known to humans, that of the oral tradition, where they sit together as a community and listen to the old myths, the old stories. As a benefit for the Boiler Room, and in honor of this day of trickery, they present the ever-popular annual event Trickster Tales: A Night of Storytelling, now in it’s fifth year. Stories and wisdom of those masters of creative chaos: Coyote, Raven, Mink and more.

We once again feature master storytellers: Johnny Moses from the Tulalip Tribe, renowned mythologist Daniel Deardorff and Jamestown S’Klallam elder Elaine Grinnell & guests.

This benefit event will be held in Port Townsend, WA at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on April 1, 6:30pm. They are offering a sliding scale of $12-25 and no one will be turned away. For more info clic here: 

Words to Honor Diane Wolkstein's Memory (USA)

Diane Wolkstein´s family announce the passing of Diane Wolkstein and Memorial service this Sunday February 3.

Diane Wolkstein, world-renowned storyteller and author of 23 books, died following emergency heart surgery on January 31st while on a trip to Taiwan. A public memorial service will be held this Sunday, February 3rd, at 3PM at the New York Insight Meditation Center, located at 28 West 27th Street, 10th floor (b/w 5th and 6th Avenue). (A second memorial, celebrating Diane's life, is planned for the summer/fall).

A message from Diane's daughter, Rachel: 

 "It is with profound sadness that I tell you that my mother, Diane Wolkstein, passed away very early this morning in Taiwan. She had had emergency heart surgery but the procedure was not sufficient to allow her heart to work on its own. She was not conscious and she was not alone. She had several of her close friends from Taiwan there with her and at the very end she had a rabbi say kaddish and Buddhist prayers were said as well. Her death is a terrible shock. Her life overflowed with joy, intensity, friendship, love and spirit. Her love for each of us and the stories she told live inside of us forever." —Rachel Zucker

Obituary:

Diane Wolkstein, world-renowned storyteller, folklorist, mythologist and author of many books for children and adults, died following emergency heart surgery on January 31 while on a trip to Taiwan working on her most recent project, the Chinese epic story of Monkey King or Journey to the West.

Diane was the author of 23 books of folklore and performed to sold-out crowds throughout the world.  What set Diane apart as a storyteller are her performing gifts as well as the depth of knowledge and research she devoted to the stories she told.  Diane’s collection, The Magic Orange Tree, was the result of numerous visits to Haiti during which Diane recorded stories told on porches and in late-night gatherings. In Australia, Diane met Aboriginal storytellers who granted her special permission to tell their stories. Wolkstein spent years working with Samuel Noah Kramer, one of the world’s pre-eminent archeologists, to create the definitive telling of the great Sumerian epic, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, which she performed at the United Nations and the British Museum.  Because of Diane’s work, Inanna has become an influential text in feminist studies and studies of ancient history.

Diane’s belief in story and its potential to transform people’s lives propelled her to the forefront of the modern storytelling movement as early as 1967, when she joined the New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation and started a year–round storytelling program for the city’s parks and schools. Diane initiated America’s first graduate storytelling program at Bank Street College of Education and was a regular visiting teacher of mythology at New York University for 18 years. She is a founding member of both America’s National Storytelling Conference and the Storytelling Center of New York City, and has held hundreds of workshops on the art of storytelling throughout her long career. For thirteen years Diane’s radio show, Stories from Many Lands, was broadcast on WNYC–AM/FM bi–weekly, and in 2007 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg named June 22nd of that year “Diane Wolkstein Day” in honor of Diane’s 40 years of storytelling for the people of New York City.

New York City’s children gathered at the foot of the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park to hear Diane tell stories every Saturday for more than forty summers.  The culminating event of the storytelling season was her telling of Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep and the skip rope competition that followed.

Diane is survived by her daughter, Rachel Zucker, her son-in-law Josh Goren, her three grandsons Moses Goren, Abram Goren and Judah Goren, her mother Ruth Wolkstein, her brothers Martin Wolkstein and Gary Wolkstein, her sister-in-law Elizabeth Borsodi, nieces and nephews and a grandniece. She also leaves behind many dearly loved friends in New York and around the world.

In lieu of flowers please consider making a donation in Diane’s name to Partners in Health, or Tzu Chi Foundation.

A public memorial service will be held this Sunday, February 3rd, at 3PM at the New York Insight Meditation Center, located at 28 West 27th Street, 10th floor (b/w 5th and 6th Avenue). (A second memorial, celebrating Diane's life is being planned for the summer/fall).

Chennai Storytelling Festival (Chennai, India)

Presenting the first ever Chennai Storytelling Festival. An opportunity for learning about storytelling as a powerful tool used in various fields like education, learning and development, business, therapy and counseling and more.

Guest performer from Singapore (Kamini Ramachandran), and Chennai's own storytellers (Eric Miller, Geeta Ramanujam, Sudha Umashankar, Mohana Priya, Sandhya Ruban- Eloquens, Ameen Harque, Gaurav Arora, Sowmya Srivasan, Aparna Athreya, Anita Ratnam, Mrinalini Sekar, Magdalene Jeyarathena, and Uma Balu). Plenty of workshops.

Venue: Goethe-Institut Chennai Max Mueller Bhavan No.4 5th Street, Rutland Gate Chennai 600 006, Tamil Nadu, India

Date: February 1-3,  2013.

Clic the image

Congratulations for the first Chenai Storytelling Festival!

Happy New Year 2013

“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.” –Dalai Lama

Happy 2013
Feliz 2013

Unknow Andersen Fairy tale has been discovered (Denmark)

A Danish historian says he has discovered a copy of what is believed to be a previously unknown fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen.

Esben Brage says he found the six-page text in early October while searching in the National Archives of Funen through boxes that had belonged to wealthy families from Andersen's home-town of Odense in central Denmark.

The handwritten tale entitled "Tallow Candle," is a short story about a revered candle that becomes grimy and neglected until its inner beauty is recognised and ignited.and dedicated to a widow who had lived across from Andersen, had been left seemingly untouched at the bottom of one of the boxes.

Andersen expert Ejnar Stig Askgaard said Thursday this is likely one of Andersen's earliest works, written seven years before his official debut. Born in 1805, Andersen wrote nearly 160 fairy tales including "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid."

Here it´s translated and published a version of the story in English.

The Storyteller Mo Yan Was Named the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2012

Mo Yan said in his speech at Nobel Prize ceremony:

" I am a storyteller.

Telling stories earned me the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Many interesting things have happened to me in the wake of winning the prize, and they have convinced me that truth and justice are alive and well.

So I will continue telling my stories in the days to come"   by Mo Yanh.

We openly express our joy, pride and admiration by Mo Yan, and their incredible stories.

Here are a few paragraphs where Mo Yah talks about the storytellers from his speech at the Nobel prize ceremony. You can read ithe full speech on the official website of the Nobel Prize

© THE NOBEL FOUNDATION 2012

Nobel Lecture

7 December, 2012

By Mo Yan

Storytellers

"...A storyteller once came to the marketplace, and I sneaked off to listen to him. She was unhappy with me for forgetting my chores. But that night, while she was stitching padded clothes for us under the weak light of a kerosene lamp, I couldn’t keep from retelling stories I’d heard that day. She listened impatiently at first, since in her eyes professional storytellers were smooth-talking men in a dubious profession. Nothing good ever came out of their mouths. But slowly she was dragged into my retold stories, and from that day on, she never gave me chores on market day, unspoken permission to go to the marketplace and listen to new stories. As repayment for Mother’s kindness and a way to demonstrate my memory, I’d retell the stories for her in vivid detail.

It did not take long to find retelling someone else’s stories unsatisfying, so I began embellishing my narration. I’d say things I knew would please Mother, even changed the ending once in a while. And she wasn’t the only member of my audience, which later included my older sisters, my aunts, even my maternal grandmother. Sometimes, after my mother had listened to one of my stories, she’d ask in a care-laden voice, almost as if to herself: “What will you be like when you grow up, son? Might you wind up prattling for a living one day?”

A popular saying goes “It is easier to change the course of a river than a person’s nature.” Despite my parents’ tireless guidance, my natural desire to talk never went away, and that is what makes my name – Mo Yan, or “don’t speak” – an ironic expression of self-mockery.

...

After leaving school, I was thrown uncomfortably into the world of adults, where I embarked on the long journey of learning through listening. Two hundred years ago, one of the great storytellers of all time – Pu Songling – lived near where I grew up, and where many people, me included, carried on the tradition he had perfected. Wherever I happened to be – working the fields with the collective, in production team cowsheds or stables, on my grandparents’ heatedkang, even on oxcarts bouncing and swaying down the road, my ears filled with tales of the supernatural, historical romances, and strange and captivating stories, all tied to the natural environment and clan histories, and all of which created a powerful reality in my mind.

...

... I must say that in the course of creating my literary domain, Northeast Gaomi Township, I was greatly inspired by the American novelistWilliam Faulkner and the Columbian Gabriel García Márquez. ...

What I should do was simplicity itself: Write my own stories in my own way. My way was that of the marketplace storyteller, with which I was so familiar, the way my grandfather and my grandmother and other village old-timers told stories. In all candor, I never gave a thought to audience when I was telling my stories; perhaps my audience was made up of people like my mother, and perhaps it was only me.

 ...

A person can experience only so much, and once you have exhausted your own stories, you must tell the stories of others. And so, out of the depths of my memories, like conscripted soldiers, rose stories of family members, of fellow villagers, and of long-dead ancestors I learned of from the mouths of old-timers. They waited expectantly for me to tell their stories. My grandfather and grandmother, my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, my wife and my daughter have all appeared in my stories. Even unrelated residents of Northeast Gaomi Township have made cameo appearances. Of course they have undergone literary modification to transform them into larger-than-life fictional characters...."

At the end of his speech continues by saying:

"Even though I would prefer to say nothing, since it is something I must do on this occasion, let me just say this:

I am a storyteller, so I am going to tell you some stories...."

And Mo Yan told one last story:

"Bear with me, please, for one last story, one my grandfather told me many years ago: A group of eight out-of-town bricklayers took refuge from a storm in a rundown temple. Thunder rumbled outside, sending fireballs their way. They even heard what sounded like dragon shrieks. The men were terrified, their faces ashen. “Among the eight of us,” one of them said, “is someone who must have offended the heavens with a terrible deed. The guilty person ought to volunteer to step outside to accept his punishment and spare the innocent from suffering. Naturally, there were no volunteers. So one of the others came up with a proposal: Since no one is willing to go outside, let’s all fling our straw hats toward the door. Whoever’s hat flies out through the temple door is the guilty party, and we’ll ask him to go out and accept his punishment.” So they flung their hats toward the door. Seven hats were blown back inside; one went out the door. They pressured the eighth man to go out and accept his punishment, and when he balked, they picked him up and flung him out the door. I’ll bet you all know how the story ends: They had no sooner flung him out the door than the temple collapsed around them.

I am a storyteller.

Telling stories earned me the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Many interesting things have happened to me in the wake of winning the prize, and they have convinced me that truth and justice are alive and well.

So I will continue telling my stories in the days to come.

Thank you all".

Translated by Howard Goldblatt

Transgressive Tales - Queering the Grimms

The stories in the Grimm brothers' Kinder und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales), first published in 1812 and 1815, have come to define academic and popular understandings of the fairy tale genre. Yet over a period of forty years, the brothers, especially Wilhelm, revised, edited, sanitized, and bowdlerized the tales, publishing the seventh and final edition in 1857 with many of the sexual implications removed. However, the contributors in Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms demonstrate that the Grimms and other collectors paid less attention to ridding the tales of non-heterosexual implications and that, in fact, the Grimms’ tales are rich with queer possibilities. 

Editors Kay Turner and Pauline Greenhill introduce the volume with an overview of the tales’ literary and interpretive history, surveying their queerness in terms of not just sex, gender and sexuality, but also issues of marginalization, oddity, and not fitting into society. In three thematic sections, contributors then consider a range of tales and their queer themes. In Faux Femininities, essays explore female characters, and their relationships and feminine representation in the tales. Contributors to Revising Rewritings consider queer elements in rewritings of the Grimms’ tales, including Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Jeanette Winterson’s Twelve Dancing Princesses, and contemporary reinterpretations of both “Snow White” and “Snow White and Rose Red.” Contributors in the final section, Queering the Tales, consider queer elements in some of the Grimms’ original tales and explore intriguing issues of gender, biology, patriarchy, and transgression. 

With the variety of unique perspectives in Transgressive Tales, readers will find new appreciation for the lasting power of the fairy-tale genre. Scholars of fairy-tale studies and gender and sexuality studies will enjoy this thought-provoking volume. 

Contributors: Emilie Anderson-Grégoire, Cristina Bacchilega, Anita Best, Joy Brooke Fairfield, Andrew J. Friedenthal, Kevin Goldstein, Pauline Greenhill, Bettina Hutschek, Jeana Jorgensen, Kimberly J. Lau, Elliot Gordon Mercer, Margaret A. Mills, Jennifer Orme, Catherine Tosenberger, Kay Turner, Margaret R. Yocom 

Published by Wayne State University Press<

Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany

A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years. The tales are part of a collection of myths, legends and fairytales, gathered by the local historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810–1886) in the Bavarian region of Oberpfalz at about the same time as the Grimm brothers were collecting the fairytales that have since charmed adults and children around the world. 

Last year, the Oberpfalz cultural curator Erika Eichenseer published a selection of fairytales from Von Schönwerth's collection, calling the book Prinz Roßzwifl. This is local dialect for "scarab beetle". The scarab, also known as the "dung beetle", buries its most valuable possession, its eggs, in dung, which it then rolls into a ball using its back legs. Eichenseer sees this as symbolic for fairytales, which she says hold the most valuable treasure known to man: ancient knowledge and wisdom to do with human development, testing our limits and salvation. 

Von Schönwerth spent decades asking country folk, labourers and servants about local habits, traditions, customs and history, and putting down on paper what had only been passed on by word of mouth. In 1885, Jacob Grimm said this about him: "Nowhere in the whole of Germany is anyone collecting [folklore] so accurately, thoroughly and with such a sensitive ear." Grimm went so far as to tell King Maximilian II of Bavaria that the only person who could replace him in his and his brother's work was Von Schönwerth. 

Von Schönwerth compiled his research into a book called Aus der Oberpfalz – Sitten und Sagen, which came out in three volumes in 1857, 1858 and 1859. The book never gained prominence and faded into obscurity. 

While sifting through Von Schönwerth's work, Eichenseer found 500 fairytales, many of which do not appear in other European fairytale collections. For example, there is the tale of a maiden who escapes a witch by transforming herself into a pond. The witch then lies on her stomach and drinks all the water, swallowing the young girl, who uses a knife to cut her way out of the witch. However, the collection also includes local versions of the tales children all over the world have grown up with including Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin, and which appear in many different versions across Europe. 

A news of The Guardian.More information here.

2012 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Awards to Abuelas Cuentacuentos (Argentina)

We´re happy because of The 2012 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Awards was to Abuelas Cuentacuentos in Argentina members of Red Internacional de Cuentacuentos-International Storytelling Network and SIPAR in Cambodia.

Abuelas Cuentacuentos (the Grandmother Storytelling Program) is organized by the Mempo Giardinelli Foundation, and trains older people to read stories to children. Volunteers participate in programs in schools throughout the city of Resistencia in northeastern Argentina, promoting reading to thousands of the poorest children, many of them living in marginal communities.

CONGRATULATIONS to Abuelas Cuentacuentos and SIPAR.

The International Board on Books for Young People announced the winners of the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Awards from the Bologna Book Fair on Monday. María Teresa Andruetto from Argentina has won the 2012 Author Award and Peter Sís from the Czech Republic has won the 2012 Illustrator Award. Andruetto and Sís will receive their awards at the IBBY Congress in London on August 25.