Guadalajara 2011 - The tales of the Ocean Mouse

Yes, Ocean Mouse. Sea Mouse, more accurately. The pun took me almost three days to figure out, and it's a cute one, so I just had to share it with you all. 'Mar' is Spanish for sea, 'ratón' is Spanish for mouse. Hence, Maratón.

Of course, I am talking about the 2011 Maratón de Cuentos (Story Marathon) in Guadalajara, Spain.

My first storytelling festival experience was Jonesborough in 2007; ever since then, every storytelling event (including our own festival) I involuntarity compared to that one. And let me tell you, it is hard to measure up to Jonesborough. Not really in numbers or quality, or the tellers; not even tradition or fame. It was the unique feeling of a whole town living our of time in some fairy tale world for days and nights.
Guadalajara brought all those memories back, and more.

We arrived Friday afternoon, just after the Marathon started; Pep was nice enough to take me to my hotel to get rid of my luggage; after that, I was on my own to walk downtown and find the Palace.
It took me about half an hour, but it was worth it.
The closer I got to the Palace, the more people I saw; music floated above the palace gardens and the green labyrinth, and I saw all the colors of the rainbow on the walls. As I got closer, the crowd began to grow, and the music with it; and suddenly, I turned a corner, and there it was: banners, flags, colors and the marvelous old building of a palace filled with stories.
Maratón de Cuentos.







I wandered into the gardens first. They were filled with colorful little tents selling colorful little things; jewelry, dresses, trinkets. And of course under the colorful arches there were long tables filled with books. I dove into the thrill of the book-hunt (with what money I had left from the travels and Toledo) and spent a lot of time (I mean, a lot) wandering shiny-eyed and bushy-tailed along the tables, turning pages and admiring covers, and generally enjoying the fact that I understood what was written in them. I was finally surrounded by a crowd of Spanish-speaking people, and I loved it.
(Spanish was my second language in high school, and my mother used to teach it too; I grew to love this language when I was a kid, but I only visited Spain once before, and I was eight years old then)
I finally settled for buying one book (ONE!) - a collection of Spanish gypsy legends and tales, and wandered on. A little farther down the road by the green labyrinth there was another tent, with a sign that said Taller Cyrano - Poems and tales for measure. For one Euro, you could sit down and have a poem or a story written just for you on the spot. Of course I had to buy a story, how often do you get to buy stories tailored just for you?! So I sat, and talked to the nice guy wo sat at the table, and he wrote me a story (in Spanish!) and I paid for it with one Euro and a 200 Forint coin. We were both satisfied with the business. How awesome is that.

Finally, I wandered inside through the main gates, and walked right into the story.







What you are seeing now on the photos is the inside of the Palace, an open courtyard covered with a roof against the sun, filled with chairs and hundreds of people listening to tales. In the back, under the green tents, sat the artists who illustrated every story as they were being told, and hung the pictures on the walls for veryone to see!



I grew to love this idea during the Marathon. Every time I walked along the long rows of pictures, I admired how beautiful they were, and tried to guess the stories they illustrated. It was great fun, and a beautiful addition to the lively colors of the festival.

So, I sat down, and listened. I spent a long time listening, drinking in the language and the stories from the ever-flowing fountain. The Marathon is really what its name suggests: non-stop storytelling for three days in a row, day and night.

Around ten o'clock at night (still not dark outside) I joined the other storytellers who came with us from Toledo to the marathon. We met outside the Palace, and talked, and laughed, and then the local tellers and the organizers of the festivals took us upstairs to the balcony for a welcome dinner. It was amazing; we stood on the balcony above the crowd and the colorful tents, watched the sky turnd dark, watched the swallows flying in great numbers, nibbled at stawberries, cherries and cookies, talked and laughed, drank champagne, and listened to the music from below (in th gardens, simultaneously with the Marathon, there was a marathon of music going on. Inside the palace, not a note could be heard, but outside it was magic)

Once dinner was over, we all returned to the inside court to wait for our turn in the telling, which, according to the program, was about to happen at 3 in the morning. So we wrapped ourselves in blankets, sleeping bags, and some of us even in banners and pieces of courtains, warmed our fingers on cups of boiled wine and listened to the tales.
We had audience all night. Even if most of the people went home, after midnight we still had about fourty or fifty people listening to our tales. I almost fell asleep once or twice, but when the FEST tellers started telling, I felt awake again. I told my tale around 5 in the morning, in Spanish (try telling on stange in your second foreign language... I would love to hear what I said, but the audience seemed to like it). My first official Spanish telling. It was fun :)
I waited till the sun came up before I walked back to the hotel to sleep. I woke up at 3 in the afternoon, got dressed, and walked back to the Palace. This was enough to mess up my perception of time; from that on (well, even from before that) the whole three days in Guadalajara felt like being out of time. Days, nights, light, dark, it didn't really matter; I slept and I woke randomly, I listened to enought stories to last a lifetime, I laughed, I cried, I wandered in the city, I ate when I felt like it, I hung out with other tellers, some of them disappeared and some stayed, and it was all very colorful, and very exciting, and magical.

The whole city was full of story people. They were eithr storytellers, or friends of storytellers, or listeners, or writers, or musicians, or just tourists who wandered into the city and got trapped in the Marathon like flies in honey. We couldn't walk ten meters down the street without meeting someone one of us knew; we always found each other at the oddest places (I ran into Birgit and Brendan in an alley at an open bazaar once).
And then, all of a sudden, after a century or two, we were in the courtyard again, and colorín colorado, the Marathon was over.
So, we danced.

We danced to the music under the yellow-red-orange banners that hung low from the ceiling; we waltzed and polkaed (however you spell it) and danced in circles, and laughed, and spun, and had a great time while the decorations of the festival were already coming down around us. We went to have dinner together, courtesy of our generous hosts and the festival's organizers; and by the time we returned to the palace, the square was empy, the banners gone, and not a soul wandering around in the garden.

It felt like a fairy market; for three days and nights, it was there, filled with magic and colors and laughter; and suddenly, it was gone with the light of the day. It left the same sweet heartache behind, the same exhausted happiness and memories like trapped butterflies. One could only sit in a quiet park, smell the freshly printed pages of the book of tales, and make a quiet promise - see you all next year...

FEST 2011 - Jeux Sans Frontières

More than half a hundred storytellers gathered in a haunted castle in Spain to share ideas, news and stories for three days and as many nights before they scattered again in every direction of the compass.
Sounds like a fairy tale?
You bet.
(Also, 'castles in Spain'. I learned that from Orlando Furioso. The air castles of Spain, held together by spells and dreams, and occasionally a hyppogriff. How freakin' cool is that.)

It was the fourth annual meeting of the Federation for European Storytelling. In Spain. More specifically, in Toledo. Even more specifically, the thousand-year-old castle of San Servador, complete with its very own five-hundred-year-old ghost (that has already been exorcised at least once).
There was no way I would have stayed away from that.

I set out by plane on a rainy Tuesday morning from Budapest to Madrid, and I realized once again how much I love to travel. Especially by plane. Not like I am not afraid of a crash, but the whole experience makes me feel excited and comfortable at the same time. Terminals are easy. They tell you exactly where to go, and what to do, and they are usually clean (at least the ones I've been to), and full of interesting things and people. From the moment you walk in the airport gates all through to the gates of your destination, you are somewhere else. Outside of time. In-between. No everyday problems, no worries. Just... traveling.
(Annnd yes, I'm an Eshu, thank you to all of you who asked ;))

So, as I said, I set out from Budapest to Madrid. I was prepared to tell in Spanish; the tale I brought, translated and practiced, was the Hungarian folktale of The Boy who wanted to walk on the clouds. And now that I could see the clouds from above, I started to understand why. From below, clouds are just puffy white and grey things in the sky; but from above, they are their very own realm. The Cloud Kingdoms. There are valleys and mountains, islands and great white seas, cities with towers and walls, ships that sail the endless blue, and flocks of tiny white sheep. I spent three ours staring at them with my nose pressed against the glass. Not like it has been the first time I flew. But with the story fresh and rehearsed, it suddenly made all the sense in the world.

In Madrid, I got a brief taste of the 10+ metro lines from the airport to the railway station, and a little bit of the pouring rain, before I was on the train and on my way to Toledo. In the meantime, I found an unlikely travel companion in the one and only Giacomo Casanova, whose travel journal of Spain proved to be an amusing read on the long plane and train ride.
When I arrived to the most beautiful train station I have ever seen, the rain was still pouring. I walked around the castle hill, and up some steps; and suddenly, there it was, Toledo on the other side of the Tajo, with a great ridge in-between, and the sight was so beautiful I had to stop and stare. I climbed up the hillside, carrying my backpack with wild ducks circling above, and stood on top of the road, staring at the city and the river and the bridges, laughing.










San Servador is old, and cozy, and beautiful, everything one can wish a castle to be. And it was already starting to fill up with storytellers. Pep was there, with some of the other Spanish organizers, and I knew everything in the world was all right. I found my room, and a roommate from Austria called Karin, all smiling eyes and colorful clothes. And then other people started to arrive. Martin from England (big hug and laughing), the Italians (Paola, Davide and Giovanna, long time no see, and a lot of smiles), and other storytellers, one after another, some of them I knew and some of them were new. And then suddenly Birgit and Tone were there too, and the conference has begun.

When you have 50+ storytellers in one place (which usually puts 'herding cats' into a new perspective), speaking more than a dozen different languages, it is always confusing in the beginning. But our steering group did a great job keeping the program together as we introduced ourselves, and laughed, and slowly figured out who spoke what. That is one great thing about international storytelling: most of us speak 2+ languages, and then it is just a matter of time to figure out who can help you speak to whom. And by the end of the week, we even spoke in languages we have never heard before, and every once in a while I found myself wondering which language I have been using a moment ago... our hosts compared the whole experience to Babel, and I liked the idea. Many many languages, working together, trying to reach the sky. The book got it all wrong.





Once the introductions were over, it was time for some short presentations; first, the FEST babies, those projects and organizations that were born from the inspiration of FEST meetings in the past. One was FIST, the new organization of Italian storytellers, and the other one was our very own HOLNEMVOLT Festival. I was proud like a mother.
After the presentations, Abbi Patrix told us the tale of FEST; some of us have heard it before, but there were new details to it now, like to any good story, and it was good to hear it again, to remind us where we started.


After the presentations, we had dinner; by that time, the rain stopped, and a rainbow appeared over San Servador. This settled out program for the evening: after dinner, we all gathered and walked down the hillside to the bridge, to cross over the river and visit the magnificent city of Toledo.
A nighttime walking tour.
The city was ours; we barely ever saw anyone as we walked down streets, through narrow alleys and under great old buildings, following our guide who told us the story of Toledo. I think we must have spent about three hours wandering around, amazed by the city in the dark, the shadows around the cathedral, the moon above the main square, the gates and massive walls and cobblestones and tiny little balconies. It was great fun, doing that tour with other storytellers. I did not envy the guide, but we had so much to talk about... and at night, it felt like the whole of Toledo belonged to us, and there was no one else within the walls.

It was very late by the time we got back to San Servador; after a whole day of traveling and all the new things and the excitement, I fell into bed as I was. And the conference had just begun.

After the first day of the conference, three more followed; we had a lot to talk about. There were panel discussions of different topics; I participated in Young storytellers, Multilingual experiences, and Repertoire. In Young Storytellers, I learned about storytelling education in other countries; how the new tellers are taught, through mentors or in schools, where they practice and how. It was all very useful and fascinating, especially since I am trying to help two other young Hungarian tellers (see below), and also because I only have 2 months left before I return to the USA to start the Storytelling MA program at ETSU. (Yay!)
Multilingual experiences was equally interesting; as a group I have described above, we needed to talk about solutions to multilingual telling, which includes telling to audiences with a different native language, and also telling with other tellers, translation or tandem. There were a lot of fascinating ideas for tandem telling, and we all agreed that languages are essential in our work, and also in promoting the art of storytelling. Everyone should be able to tell in their own language, but it is also important to speak at least one other, to make international telling easier. And of course, the more the merrier.
Repertoire was mainly about what kind of stories we tell, and how we work with them. Patricia McGill had a lovely image for that: she said picking stories is like buying shoes. There are the ones that are comfortable enough to wear for years; and there are some beautiful ones you just have to have, even if they hurt your feet for a long time before you break them in. And sometimes you just need to run into a shop and buy one out of necessity, and that's okay too.







Apart from panel discussions, we also had group meetings. One for festival organizers, which was extremely useful for me (our festival is still a baby, while others are already teenagers, or even grown-ups). I took pages and pages of notes of useful ideas and creative tidbits about making a storytelling festival successful. And there were a lot to them to learn from. Hakaya, Maratón de Cuentos, ZauberWort, Raccontamiunastoria, Beyond the Border, Festival on the Edge... it would be a long list, if I listed them all. But they all had good things to say, and I was happy to be part of the group.
We also had meetings about FEST itself, trying to figure out what to do to make it more visible, to promote storytelling, to create a website, a newsletter... there were a lot of ideas, and we invented the wheel more than once, but there were things to be said, and in this huge Game Without Borders, we all had to be on the same page. Our greatest fear was that between the annual meetings (Belgium next year, Rome after that, and then Sweden) nothing would happen. But everyone seemed very determined to continue active projects in-between, so we had all the hopes in the world. We'll see.

On the last day of the conference, we even sketched out an international all-European storytelling project for the 2012 Grimm year. It is called Project Grimm, and includes dozens of tellers all telling Grimm tales in their own languages, styles and versions. I am currently coordinating the project. Fun fun fun!

And of course, we had fun. While the festival organizers worked, those who do not have a festival had creative labs, and in two days they created five multilingual story performances, one better than the other. Thursday evening we all walked into Toledo once again, to the baroque theater, to watch the show. One group after another walked on stage and told us stories, and with the abundance of languages they used, all the stories were great, and the performances enjoyable, full of fun ideas for translation and interpretation.









We even had a Mini Film Fest, where we watched videos and slide shows of various storytelling events and programs of the past year. It was nice to see the photos from Raccontamiunastoria, the amazing DVD from Hakaya, and I even presented a short music video myself, cut from the videos made at Holnemvolt. Once the music is legal, I will post it online as well...

Anyhow, a lot more happened in four days than one would believe; it felt like a year, or more, some reverse fairy tale where one thinks she spent a year in the other world, and comes back to find out nothing has changed. Not that I mind.

We are all very different, us storytellers. It is a unique European experience, having so many cultures and so many languages in one place. (Just for the record: Spain, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Israel, Jordan, Chile, Mexico... I must have left one or two out...) We have ideas, and festivals, and a lot of stories; sometimes we invent wheels enough to supply a car factory, but most of the time, we get along just fine. Storytelling builds long and strong bridges from one culture to another, and even when we are tired and confused and don't always understand every word, we always find our way back in the end. It is a great honor to be a part of such a great group of people; to listen to the tales, and share the news the old way: traveling, listening, telling.

And here ends the conference, but not the tale.

The Oriole, the Cloudwalker, and the Multicolored Lady

The first storytelling guild in Hungary!!!

In the aftermath of TEDxYouth and the Holnemvolt Festival, quite a few people approached me to ask about storytelling, and some of them were even interested in telling tales themselves. They were eager to learn, and excited, and fun to talk to. Some of them I met more than once, others just sent an e-mail or two; but all of them were interesting and talented and it made me happy to see storytelling is indeed increasingly popular in Hungary, and that I can be a part of this change.
In the end, two people decided to try their hands at being a professional storyteller. Both of them I knew before for their other talents; I knew they would make good tellers. And so they did. Now when I am writing this post they are both past their first gigs, and we are having a lot of fun together as a storytelling guild. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited and happy I am!

Allow me to introduce the new storytellers:

Júlia Lovranits, a.k.a. Rigó (which is Hungarian for oriole or blackbird)

I met her in a summer camp organized for young writers and poets back when we were both in high school. She is a writer, and also now a Biology major at the university; she has been a birdwatcher since she was a child, and she knows everything there is to know about birds. No, really. Everything. In her spare time, she is a member of BirdLife Hungary, and a volunteer at a hospital for wild birds. She has always loved stories and tales, and she kept showing up at most of my gigs; she is a marvelous listener, and also collects stories wherever she goes. Not she decided it was time to tell them.
Juli specializes is bird tales, legends and myths, and she combines them with interesting and important pieces information. Into a Bulgarian folktale about storks, she wove the tale of their long migration from Europe and Africa, and even the stories of real storks who were somehow strange or amazing (there was one that came home from Africa with a spear in its body, and raised its young and lived on; and there is one in Hungary who came here from Spain and ever since then he does not migrate at all). She is graceful and cheerful, and she always has a spark in her eyes when she talks about birds.

Viktor Gy. Fekete, a.k.a. Felhőtlépő (which would roughly tranlsate into Cloudwalker)

He is the one who made the homepage and graphic design of the Holnemvolt Festival. He writes, he sings, he composes poems and music, he is a graphic artist and a webdesigner, and he studies at the Lutheran Theological University. Also, he now tells stories. He prefers improvising to traditional tales; he can make up the most amazing and funny stories on the spot, and you never know what to expect when you listen to him. He has a great sense of humor, and he is surprisingly good with young audiences. And have I mentioned the guitar?
(He also has a homepage)

I am proud and happy to be working with tellers like Juli and Viktor. I hope our performances and tales will encourage others to explore storytelling, and then the guild will grow into something wonderful...



(This is us, dealing with a gig at an open-air festival. We may look tired, but believe me, it was great fun! :))

Paul Bunyan visits Hungary

I have been planning on telling Paul Bunyan stories ever since I first met Babe the Blue Ox in the Fables comics (where, by the way, he totally steals the spotlight). This was entirely new for me, the whole giant lumberjack thing, so I looked up the tales on the Internet, and I enjoyed reading them immensely. I decided that I should tell them, sooner or later; sooner didn't quite work out, because I was busy with other things, but later finally came along, and I decided to give it a try.
Of course, I asked many American tellers about Paul Bunyan stories and how to tell them; I received tons of good advice, and many tales, and encouragement. I prepared by reading a lot, planning on telling the tales that stuck.
My audience consisted of two classes of second graders; they were lively, and cheerful, and very curious. I traveled from Budapest to a small town called Perkáta, in the bright spring sunshine, watching magpies and hawks fly along with the bus.
I was curious how Hungarian kids will receive Paul Bunyan. I had no clue if they would be interested, or if they would get the joke. But I found that they did not only get it, but they also loved it, and they cheered and laughed all through the whole telling. It was an unbelievable success.
I drew a few conclusions:

1. Telling tall tales is fun. I haven't really tried that before, I though it wasn't really my style, but once I started telling it felt good and I went a little crazy, with funny faces, big gestures and all. I also managed to be fairly serious when I wanted them to believe something. Hungarian kids are kind of used to tall tales; they are very popular in Hungary.
2. I started with a short introduction in the first person, telling them how I traveled to the USA and how everyone knows Paul Bunyan there, and not knowing him would be just like not knowing who King Mátyás is. They laughed. They understood what I meant.
3. They believed every word I said. I told them it was a long time ago and far far away, but other than that, I did not discuss with them what was real and what was not. At the end of the telling, one little girl raised her hand. "The only thing that sounded strange to me was, I mean, why five storks?..."
(The only thing that sounded strange. Go figure XD)
4. There were really no elements in the tales that needed explanation. Hungarian kids are pretty well trained in country life (both from our own folktales, and some experience), so such things as cutting wood, making dairy products or farm life in general didn't need to be explained, they just went with the story. And the giant mosquitoes were familiar, we have stories like that in Hungary, we even have a song ("I caught a mosquito, bigger than a horse..."). Maybe next time I'll put the song into the story...

All in all, it was great fun :)

Once upon a HOLNEMVOLT 3.

Sunday.

We woke up early in the morning (well, I did - many people seemed to have decided to sleep in), ready for the second day of Holnemvolt.

This time, Wayqui was the first performer; he brought us a full hour of Peruvian folktales that would have made most of the Folklore Department cry from pure joy. His authentic stories were beautiful and amazing, and at the same time, funny (the legend of the son of the rainbow; the tale of the little blue stones; the journey of the three animals). I had a great time translating for him.

Birgit brought us tales about luck and happyness; she was dressed all in red, and she was an elegant Lady Luck, a teenage Cleverness, Ali the Fortunate, and many other characters all at the same time. She sang some songs too, and they all made us feel lucky and happy.

Tone followed Birgit; she told us tales about the dangers of taking a bath. It started out funny and delightful; but as the stories went on, it touched upon some more serious issues as well (King David and Bathsheba; Susanna and the elders). It was a wonderful, wonderful program, and gave us a lot to think about.

Szende told her székely folktales again, with laughter and dancing and puppets and jokes; the audience participated willingly, and they all had a great time. Szende has the power to be a wise woman and a cute little girl at the same time. I wonder how she does it.

Angela was the last performer of the day; she had an amazing story about Baba Yaga going to New York. She told it with momentum, and magic, and song, and it was about twice as exciting as watching an action movie. It was one part Russian folklote, one part Night Watch, and one part Fables, all mixed into a story that made my mouth hang wide open. It was unbelievable.

After the big performances, we had some time left for a SWAP! Four people from the audience volunteered to tell. One of them was Jay Miller, who is an American storyteller currently living in Budapest (who would have thought?). He told us two stories with voice and pantomime, and audience participation, and everyone loved him. My friend Juli also told a Bulgarian folktale about the journey of the storks from Europe to Africa. I can't hear that story enough.

Because the festival took place in a Lutheran church, Sunday afternoon was time for a service. Instead of one, we decided to tell religious and spiritual stories; I think it was one of the best parts of the festival. Wayqui, for example, told a Perucian myth; Tone told us a tale about an elf building a church in Norway (and we could see her transform into an elf on the stage). Angela told her African folktale of finding your inner strength; we could see how the audience reacted to that, and how they all started to sing.

And with that, the festival was over. We thanked everyone who helped us; we gave our presents to the storytellers. We promised we would do it again next year.

After the closing ceremony, we all went out into the dark garden with candles in our hands; there was a small exhibition waiting for us among the trees that some of our friends put together from glass and porcelaine art, and every piece told us a different story. We wandered among the shadows with our little lights; it almost felt like finding our way back home after two days in another world.
All the tales are true.

Once upon a HOLNEMVOLT 2.

As I was saying, we had 6 amazing tellers.
Well, actually, we had 5 amazing tellers, and me :)

(Check out the HOLNEMVOLT Facebook page for photos!)

We had...
... Angela Davis, the Yarnspinner, from New Orleans, LA
... Tone Bolstad FLøde, from Norway
... César "El Wayqui" Villegas, from Perú
... Birgit Lehner, from Austria
... Csernik Szende, from Transylvania
... and me.

I have told with Angela and Wayqui before when they were in Hungary; I knew Birgit from FEST, and Szende because I have been to her performances, and she is a friend of Petra, the person who made Holnemvolt happen (she is a pastor of the lutheran church, also leads the gospel choir, is an opera singer and a midwife, and speaks like 5 languages, by the way). Tone was new for me; I have exchanged countless emails and messages with her, but never heard her tell. But what I knew about her I could tell she was an exceptional person :)

We started the festival with an olio, to show the audience what they can expect for the rest of the two days. To open the festival I told the story of Moses dividing the Red Sea (as an allegory to the festival, because someone had to take the first step to create a road to the other side). After that, every storyteller told a short story; they were all delightful and wonderful, and captured the audience at once. Birgit told a tale of the three wishes combined into one; Angela sang a funny song about how guys should not be trusted. Tone told the tale of the clever girl (going to the prince not dressed but not naked, not on foot but not ona horse... etc. you know the story don't you), Wayqui told a folktale about how all the birds got married except for the hen and the rooster. Szende sang a wonderful song, and told a short little tale too.

And then it was time for the rest of the day. Every teller had a one-hour performance to ourselves; and all the programs were great!

Angela opened with Swamp Party, her collection of Louisiana tales. I was the one translating for her, and let me tell you, I felt like Coyote holding on to the tail of a shooting star. The audience loved her; they laughed, they yelled, they smiled. She walked down into the audience and picked a guy to participate in the story; and she not only picked him, but also picked him up, and carried him onto the stage on her shoulder. You should have seen his face.
(She also happened to pick my dad to play a loup garou in the story; I was laughing so hard I had to stop translating)

After a short lunch break, Szende took over the stage; since she doesn't only tell stories, but also uses foot puppets, she had to sit on a table to let the audience see what she was doing. She was very cute, and pretty, and we were glad we did not need to translate her because she speaks a Transylvanian dialect and it is sometimes hard to understand even for us. Her performance of székely folktales (with lots of audience participation) was a great success.

The next teller was Tone, and I was very excited to finally hear her tell her viking tales. She was dressed in a Medieval costume, and so was her translator, Timi; they looked great together. Tone started humming a song, and we were instantly pulled into another world; I had a very strong sensation of traveling, and even the air seemed colder. We heard about the Norns, golden apples, viking warriors, Loki, and the World Tree; at some moments in the story, I felt goosebumps on my skin. She was that good.

Birgit followed, and we wandered into another world: the world of Roma folktales. She fell in love with gypsy culture a while ago, and she tells their wonderful stories and sings their beautiful songs. It was an interesting choice of a program; in Hungary, even though many Roma people live among us, most people barely know anything about their culture or heritage. Birgit did a great job opening that world up for us through stories.

The last performance of the day was Wayqui (since I was translating for him too, I made sure I had time to rest between the two). He brought us love stories from all over the world; he told us how the first act of love was invented, he told us a tale about a grain of sand who loved a star; he told us the story of the three princes who all loved the same girl, but in different ways. Wayqui has a very calm, strong way of telling; the audience would follow him anywhere.

And the day was far from over!

In the evening, we had a ghost story concert named "Esti kísértés" (kísértés has a double meaning in Hungarian: it both means temptation and haunting). The hall filled up with people; somehow everyone seemed interested in ghost stories for adults. In this program, every teller told one tale again. Some were frightening (like Angela's, who dressed up as an old woman, concealing her face with a shawl, and managed to creep out everyone just by showing up), others were funny (like Birgit's telling of The piper's revenge). Wayqui told a Medieval tale of a man who snored, and a princess who was always terrified; it was one cute love story if I ever heard one.

And when all the tales were told, we walked outside, and... erhm... noticed some flying lanterns that happened to float by (since the fire department does not quite approve of them), and watched them disappear into the dark sky until they were just moving stars among the real ones. Our wishes, wonders and stories traveled with them.

And so ended the first day of the Holnemvolt Festival.

Once upon a HOLNEMVOLT 1.

We did it.
We put an international storytelling festival together.
2 days, 6 tellers, 6 countries. Countless stories.
We did it.
...
All right, so we just wanted an excuse to bring storytellers here for ourselves.

An enermous amount of work went into the creation of HOLNEMVOLT. Fortunately enough, we had a lot of great people helping us; seven women and one guy worked together for months, taking care of all the details from creating the homepage all the way to making decorations. We all worked with enthusiasm and devotion, and we managed to overcome all the obstacles (such as some people trying to sabotage the festival by organizing a national conference on top of it... well, two, actually, taking our reserved guest rooms etc.) We were all tired and busy and overwhelmed; but no one ever complained.
We were building a new event from below scratch - we did not only have to promote the festival, but promote storytelling itself, since a few people even knew what the word means. So we had to patiently explain over and over and over and over again that Holnemvolt is for grown-ups, and yes, we will have translation, and no, we are not reading from books, and yes, storytelling can be enjoyable for adults, blah blah blah Ginger. Looks like we did a great job; no one showed up with kids expecting a children's festival, so the message went through. Our pr and media expert did a wonderful job promoting the festival; we were in newspapers, in all the radio programs, on tv, everywhere. We had posters and stickers up all over Budapest. We did everything possible to make the festival successful.
Of course there were problems; we had to deal with a lot of things. The timing, for example, proved to be one of the problems: since 15th of March is a national holiday in Hungary, and it was on Tuesday, people had a four-day weekend with amazing weather, so many of them left the city. We also had almost no money for creating the festival, so we had to rely on people's good will and volunteer's help. Fortunately enough, we got great volunteers. We made a few mistakes ourselves out of tiredness or inexperience; but we managed to get everything in place in the end, and made a list of what we will do better next year. For a very first festival we've ever organized, I think Holnemvolt was a pretty decent job.
I hope that one day, years from now, the creation of the festival will become a story in itself. One of the people who came to listen to our tales said "this is the kind of event that years from now when it will be huge an popular, people will be proudly saying 'I was there at the very first one...'". That's what we are aiming for.
Of course, it would not have worked without our wonderful, wonderful tellers. They traveled here on their own money to help us create a storytelling event for this country; they were all great, and kind, and helpful, and very patient with all of us when we were tired and confused. And they brought us amazing stories that made us think: "We HAVE to do this again next year..."

So many things happened in two days, it is hard to remember all of them at once. In the next few posts, I will try to summarize the experience for those who were not there.
Maybe next year :)