Cuentos Los Silos - Stories for Everyone

Los Silos is an incredibly diverse festival, with the participation of pretty much the entire town, as well as people from all over the island, and (in my case) all over the world. I was impressed by how well it all fit together, and how seamlessly it incorporated events for all ages and all tastes. 2014 was the 19th year of the festival, and the practice definitely bore fruit.
Instead of a chronological account of the events, I decided I would like to mention some of my favorite parts of the weekend, to give you all a glimpse of what it felt like to be in the middle of such a colorful, busy, inspiring whirlwind of stories. So, if you ever decide to visit Los Silos early in December, here are some of the things you can encounter:
(All pictures come from the Cuentos Los Silos Facebook site. Go and like it.)

Storytelling concerts

We all had to bring several 50 minute shows to the festival. As for me, I had 3, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. It took me almost a year to piece them together, translate them, and practice telling them in Spanish, but the end result was absolutely worth the work.
Some shows took place late in the morning (11am) and were advertised for a family audience. For that, I presented my Strange Princesses program, filled with Hungarian folktales about brave, clever, and exceptional girls. The show took place in the theater room of the local Health Center (yep), and it was filled with families. After the show, little girls lined up to thank me for the stories and give me a kiss on the cheek. A few times I stumbled over words in the stories; I was delighted to find out that the audience was more than willing to help me find the right one, and smile in approval as the story continued on.
My two adult shows took place in the local high school on the two nights of the weekend. The first one was a new program of legends about Attila the Hun; the second a series of Hungarian folktales that had connections to Spain (and even, in a symbolic way, to the Canary Islands). The house was completely full both times (about 100 people), and to my great surprise I found out later that there was even a Hungarian lady in the audience!
Sadly, I didn't get to go to the big shows of anyone else over the weekend. I would have loved to see all of them, but we either told at the same time, or other things came up on the schedule. Pretty much all of our shows played to a full house, though, and we were overwhelmed by the love and support of the audiences.

Stories from the Balcony

I was so happy I got to do this one! In the evenings, under the light of the full moon and the lampions, storytellers told one story each from various balconies around the main square. People gathered below, sitting on stairs, benches, fences and chairs, and gazed up at the pretty wooden balconies where the storytellers were. It was tons of fun to walk up the creaking wooden stairs of the town hall (more than 200 years old) and walk out onto the balcony to impart some folklore upon the masses below. Made you feel like the Pope.
I got to hear two rounds of Balconies, and I was glad I did. A lot of the local tellers did them too. In my round I shared time with Luís and Fabio (who actually did the balcony thing twice; also, he is really good at picking the right story for the right audience); walking around in the evenings I got to hear Mar González and Laura Escuela as well. Since the weather was so warm, it was great fun to sit around on the square, waiting for storytellers to appear in a strange Romeo and Juliet fashion.

Stories on Couches
This one was truly unique and fun. At 5 in the afternoon people gathered in front of the town hall, holding their tickets to a show by one of the five storytellers listed on the program. When we all gathered, volunteers led us in different directions along winding alleys and around corners until we arrived to... someone's home. In the spacious living room, hidden from the noise of the main square and the spotlight of the stages, the chosen storyteller sat in an armchair, waiting of us, accompanied by drinks and cookies. I went to Luís' session; there were ten of us there, including the couple who owned the apartment, and that was really all the living room could fit. What resulted was a very nice, quiet, relaxed hour of stories, where the storyteller talked to us instead of at us, and we all got to sit back and enjoy a quiet hour of storytelling the way it most naturally works. Luís was graceful and funny and eloquent, and even played us a lullaby on his accordion in the end.
I am suddenly a big fan of small-scale storytelling festival events.

Stories in Patios
These kind of worked the same way the Couches did, except this time we took our seats in the small hidden patios of old apartment buildings. The audience consisted of about twenty adults and children. This time I got into Fabio's session, who did not only switch quickly between Inuit myths and colorful children's books, but even told a Fionn Mac Cool story, with which he totally won the festival, at least in my eyes.
(I noticed that Spanish tellers like to tell with picture books, which pretty much defeats everything I have learned about the art of oral storytelling. They do an amazing job bringing the stories to life with their own words, and the books they use I gorgeous. I spent a lot of money on picture books in the festival's bookstore. A lot.)

Lightning round!

The end of the festival was marked by a final show in front of about 300 people in the inner court of the old convent building. On this stage all of us featured tellers told one more 5 minute story each, to say a fitting farewell to our beloved audiences. I told second, and after I did I took my place in the back of the stage on a brightly painted bench, to watch the others. In the case of some of them it was the first time I heard them tell, and instantly regretted not getting around to go to more of their concerts. The Tapetes duo was lovely, and so was Arturo, who told his own funny story about saints running a race to decide who gets to stay in the canon (a very Spanish story for a very Spanish audience). As a former Catholic school student, I was very close to peeing myself from laughter on the stage. The lineup came to a closing with a tale told by the festival's main organizer, Ernesto Rodríguez Abad, who brought all of our tales into perspective. The full moon and the stars peered in from the night sky above. At the end of the show a marching band appeared out of nowhere, and we all filed out of the building and onto the square where everything erupted into a spontaneous dance party that lasted long into the night.

Poems and Umbrellas

 In addition to all the shows, circles, book signings and children's workshops, there were also many volunteers walking around the square, adding more color to the weekend. Some of them carried long cardboard tubes, and if you asked them, they put it to your ear and then whispered a poem into it for you, in a vibrating, mysterious voice. Others carried umbrellas decorated with colorful cards, and if you stopped them, they stood under the umbrella with you, reading you a story from one of the cards (and then pointed you to the bookstore where you could find the corresponding book). It was all good fun, and literally brought poetry, art, and storytelling to all the people on the streets.

All in all, the festival was packed with things to do, things to hear, and things to learn. It was extremely busy, and at the same time a whole enchanted weekend full of colors and words. It was one of the best storytelling events I have ever been to, and I am deeply honored to have been asked to be a part of it, and bring my stories from Hungary all the way to Tenerife. I will be re-living and re-telling this experience for a very long time.

Cuentos Los Silos - Storytelling Festival on Tenerife

This one might have been my most adventurous storytelling job yet.
Definitely one of the best.

I was invited to the Festival Internacional del cuento de Los Silos (Los Silos International Storytelling Festival) almost a year ago. My first reaction was to look it up on the Internet; I have been to festival in Spain before, but this one I was not familiar with. Turns out it takes place in a town on Tenerife, Canary Islands. I thought about it for about a whole ten seconds before I agreed to go.

Los Silos is a small town in the northwestern corner of the island. It is far away from most tourist-frequented places (they tell me tourists congregate on the southern beaches of the island where there is sand and less rain). The town is surrounded by banana groves and breathtakingly beautiful volcanic mountains on one side, and the black rocks of the Atlantic shore on the other. From the airport we were taken by car along the long winding road that balances between ocean and mountains, through small cities and towns made of colorful houses, until late in the morning of the day after I left the US (thank you, time difference) we arrived to the main square of Los Silos, and the house that was going to be our home for the weekend.

Before I passed out for 17 hours, I took a small walk around: Around the main square stood the town hall, the building of the old convent that was transformed into the festival headquarters, and the restaurant that was going to be our regular place for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and wifi. I was also introduced to the organizing team of the festival, all extremely friendly, insanely busy, and very patient to repeat sentences when my sleep-deprived brain failed to switch over to Spanish fast enough (it always takes a day or so before I make the switch between two foreign languages).
By the time I rolled out of bed the next morning, the festival was already on full swing. In fact, it had been in full swing for more than a week at that point: The local storytellers of Tenerife, as well as some guest performers, had been making the rounds in the schools of the island, telling to kids. The festival itself is a several week long series of events, crowned by the last weekend full of storytelling all over the city, from early morning late into the night. This last three-day long extravaganza was the part that I (and a series of other storytellers from all around the world) got invited for.

Our personal headquarters for the weekend was the little café in the middle of the square. People sat out there at any given point during the day or the night. Although it was the middle of December, the weather was lovely. The locals frequently apologized to us for the cold, shivering in their coats - it was about 20 degrees Celsius (in the 60's Fahrenheit) the entire weekend. I, flying in from Freezingcold, OH, was thoroughly amused, and took all possible chances to sit outside and soak up the warm.

It was in the café on Friday that I was introduced to most of the guest storytellers of the festival. I already knew Ana Griott (her storytelling name; her real name is Ana Cristina Herreros), a lovely and elegant lady that in her spare time writes wonderful folktale collections in Spanish. I also knew Luís Correia Carmelo from Portugal from one of the FEST conferences, and I was happy to get to hear him again. I was introduced to Kamel Zouaoui, an Algerian-French storyteller who speaks a zillion languages and is very passionate about the art of storytelling; we were instantly best friends. I also met Arturo Abad, a young Canarian storyteller who lives in Granada and writes and tells wonderful tales of his own. Turns out he lived in Hungary for a month, and has a puli dog! Small world. I also got to know André Neves, a children's author and illustrator from Brazil, whose colorful and enchanting work was on display the whole weekend in the bookstore. Our little team was complete with a duo from Brazil named Tapetes contadores de historias together, and Warley Goulart and Rosana Reátegui respectively. We were joined by local storytellers such as the lovely Mar González Novell, Andrés Novoa, and Fabio González. There were many more storytellers around all weekend, but since we were scattered and very busy, I sadly didn't get to make friends with all of them. The ones I met and heard were all delightful.

The theme of the festival was the Ogre, which was represented by a large statue on the square (drawn by Fabio, who was an illustrator before he also started telling stories). It was supposed to symbolize the power of stories to present dark and scary things and help us learn to deal with them. The orge in question was not only delightfully ugly, but also very useful: One could climb in through its butt and emerge from its open maws onto the festival stage; alternately, they could also hold storytelling sessions by mysterious flashlight inside the ogre's belly. Of course kids could not get enough of it. The additional theme was recycling; in order to promote it, the square and all the venues were decorated with strings of lampions created by the kids and adults of the town from recycled materials and made to look like ghosts, little monsters, and other amusing shapes.
A lot happened during the three days of the festival weekend; parallel events took place from morning to evening. I'll describe some of them in the next post, with more pictures.