Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2008

Northlands and Sagalands

Friday 24th October to Sunday 2nd November 2008

This year’s storytelling bonanza will explore the northern periphery from Greenland to Finland. Among those attending will be guest storytellers from those two countries along with Iceland, Faroes, Ireland, Norway and Sweden in between. Complementing the visitors will be a full range of Scottish storytellers including strong representation from the Northern and Western Isles.

The themes we look to develop across the Festival are:

• Journey – exploration and migration
• Celtic, Norse, Finnish, Inuit and Sami sagas and folktale traditions
• threatened minority cultures
• fragile ecologies and stories of the natural world and human culture
• light and dark in northern mythologies
• children’s stories and literature including the fabulous creatures of the North
• training and contemporary storytelling development across the nations.

Alongside an exciting programme of storytelling performances, workshops and discussion events at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, these themes will be explored through partner events, the schools and libraries outreach programme and Tell-A-Story Day on Friday 31st October (Hallowe’en!). There will also be a number of networking events for storytellers and those developing storytelling skills in their work settings.

Background

Since its launch in 1989, the Scottish International Storytelling Festival has gone from strength to strength as an annual national focus for the celebration and development of oral storytelling as an artform.

Scotland boasts a rich oral heritage, which has enjoyed a renaissance over the last twenty years. Today the Scottish Storytelling Centre and Network supports a directory of over 100 storytellers who work professionally in arts venues, schools, prisons, libraries, residential homes and hospitals across Scotland. Drawing on, and continuing to develop, Scotland's oldest literary artform, they provide people of all ages, faiths and backgrouns with opportunities for participation in quality arts activities. Many of these storytellers actively participate in the Storytelling Festival and in other arts festivals and gatherings throughout Scotland and further afield.

In 2006, over 20,000 adults and children took part in some aspect of the Storytelling Festival's extensive programme of over 140 events.

In 2007

2007's Scottish International Storytelling Festival ran from the 26th October to 4th November and took as its theme Out of Eden: Scotland and Africa. Now in its 18th year, Scotland's annual celebration of the oral tradtion provided a wealth of opportunities to explore the riches of storytelling as a living, contemporary artform and a central element of Scottish and African cultures, as well as plenty of chances to personally discover the magic and relevance of storytelling for the first time.

Working with a range of partner organisations in Edinburgh and the Lothians, the Festival provided a rich and varied programme of live performance storytelling events, workshops and training, literature, music, song and visual arts events which focused on the history and continuation of one of the world's oldest literary and performance artforms.

The Scottish Storytelling Centre on Edinburgh's Royal Mile became the Festival hub for the packed ten days, as international guest storytellers were joined by the tradition bearers of Scotland's oral heritage, as well as some rising lights of the storytelling artform.

This year's theme of Scotland and Africa brought together central African oral traditions and Highland lore and legend, drawing on ideas of landscape and environment, tradition and artistic culture, migration and social change to explore ancient roots and modern justive, and celebrated ethnic and cultural diversity in Scotland.

The focus was on:

- Highlands of Scotland and Lowlands of Africa

- the global renaissance of oral storytelling

- ancient cultural roots and modern injustice

There was also tie ins with:

- Black History Month

-200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery

- Scotland's Year of Highland Culture

- stop climate chaos

- parallel film festival

For the first time this year, StoryLab, a special programme for children, families and schools ran from the 8th - 26th October. StoryLab was a fun, interactive, hands-on way to get involved in storytelling. Whether concocting your own stories, or being inspired by the storytelling masters, StoryLab embraced music, drama, multi-media, arts and crafts to give young people a voice and celebrate young storytelling talent.

StoryLab concluded with Tell A Story Day on October 26th - a national day of DIY storytelling fun for adults and children which demonstrated both the current strength and latent potential of storytelling as part of Scotland's rich cultural offering to the world.