Tricky Borders: FEST Storytelling Conference, 2019.

"Tricky Borders" - this was the title given to the 2019 FEST storytelling conference by the organizers, who represented three countries together: Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The conference this year took place in the Euregio, where the borders of those three countries meet. Our headquarters was on the Netherlands side in Rolduc Abbey, and we took short trips to Aachen and the Belgian countryside. No wonder that in a place like this our main focus this year was borders - and tricksters who tend to cross them.

The day of arrival was mostly spent by talking, meeting new people, and greeting old friends (while consuming lots of cold drinks in the scorching heat). I was happy to see George Macpherson again - I met him at my first FEST conference in Lausanne in 2009, and I have read all of his books. Next to old friends I also made some new acquaintances from exciting places such as Luxembourg, Lithuania, and the Leprechaun Museum in Dublin (it was their first time at FEST, and I was happy to see them, as I am a big fan of their storytelling work).
On the first full day of the conference we had an all-day General Assembly which was smooth and well organized. We voted on the site of the 2022 conference (hello, Vilnius!) and a new Executive Committee member (hello, Agnieszka Aysen Kaim from Poland!), learned about the current and future storytelling projects FEST is supporting, and got a glimpse of the storytelling competency system that is being developed (more about that later). In the evening there was a performance titled Nowhere Lane, by Belgian storyteller Joe Boele who told stories about the life of Roma communities in the mid-20th century. The show was based on a book written by another white person who traveled with the Roma, and it was a well constructed performance, although there were some parts of it that made me feel uncomfortable about the authenticity of presenting these stories twice removed from the original source.

On the second morning of the conference we took a bus to a modern art museum in Aachen, where we spent the morning with lectures on the intersection of science and storytelling. George Macpherson told us a legend about Dian Cécht and related it to modern medicine; Giovanna Conforto talked about the importance of storytelling in science communication; Dr. Anke Groß-Kunkel from the University of Cologne introduced us to a fascinating multisensory storytelling project for people living with Profound Intellectual Multiple Disabilities. Over lunch break we wandered around downtown, visited the Aachen cathedral, ate ice cream, and talked, and then we got back on the bus and went on a short tour around three countries. We briefly ventured into Belgium, circled back to the Netherlands, got off the bus, walked across to Germany (visiting Charlemagne's huntingchapel on the way), then got back on the bus, and returned to Rolduc Abbey chased by a thunderstorm. It was a lovely trip, peppered by frequent text messages from my cellphone service provider, pinging "Welcome to Belgium/Germany/Netherlands" every few minutes... 

Friday afternoon was filled with various workshops and talks. I went to George Macpherson's "Traditional storytelling" session where he told us stories and we listened in awe, and occasionally asked questions. After that I migrated over to Sam Cannarozzi's "Science and Storytelling" talk, which was a delightful surprise: Sam decorated the whole room (including himself) with various versions of the periodic table. When we entered, everyone got assigned an element (by dice or by cards; I got Phosphorus), and Sam told us interesting facts and stories about each of them. We hunted for mythology references in the table together, and learned a lot about the history and discovery of many of the elements, from alchemists to chemists. Lots of fun!
The Friday evening presentation was brought to us by Chris Adriaanse, a storyteller and linguist from the UK, who told us about the various trickster-tools Trump and his campaign apply to manipulate people. The talk was peppered by trickster stories about Tyl Uilenspiegel (by Regina Sommer and Tom van Outryve), and sparked intense conversations among storytellers about whether or not Trump qualifies as a trickster. For the record, in my opinion, HE DOES NOT.

Saturday was another day full of workshops. In the morning I joined Regina Sommer's "The Tricksters of Tomorrow" circle, where we spent three hours brainstorming about what makes a trickster, what tools tricksters have in the modern world, and what role tricksters can/will play in social and historical change in the present and future. We came up with some fascinating ideas and systems, and we even considered organizing a trickster-themed gathering to work on them more.
In the afternoon, instead of going to workshops, I participated in creating videos for FEST's new storytelling competency system. The plan was introduced to us at the General Assembly by Veva Gerard. It is a great idea for organizing and outlining what competencies play an important part in training storytellers, and is detailed and organized enough to be the basis of accrediting storytelling programs in the EU. It contains competencies grouped by aspects of a storyteller's work such as Artist, Performer, Researcher, Team Player, etc. It is still in its testing phase, but it is flexible enough to be useful, color-coded, and the creators even brought us some games so that we could test and discuss it. In addition, they set up a studio to record short video snippets of storytellers talking about the importance of various competencies. I recorded three of them, and while I was waiting for my turn, I played around with the colorful little cards outside the door. The idea was to pick my eight most important competencies out of forty, and see what colors (themes) they represent. Here is my "storytelling fingerprint":

Purple: researcher, Blue: craftsman, Orange: team player,
Green: artist, Yellow: performer

I also shuffled them around and picked the eight competencies I personally deemed most important to teach to beginning storytellers. Here is my "teaching fingerprint":

Grey: entrepreneur

The system is still being tested and refined (they just put Tradition Bearer back into it, after some convincing from Irish, French, and, er, Hungarian participants), but I think it is a great system and a very useful idea. Congratulations to the developers!

All that was left for Saturday evening was the closing ceremony. First, we got to witness the performance of the people who participated in the mixed reality storytelling workshop. It was great fun to watch them tell stories and use virtual reality technology to illustrate them. After the show, the organizers of this year's conference handed the torch over to the Turkish delegates, who will host us next year. The evening concluded with a surprise: Paola Balbi, accompanied by a jazz musician, presented us an excerpt of a historical storytelling show about early feminism in Northern Italy. Paola is a storytelling powerhouse, and despite the late hour, her performance was utterly captivating.

Of course FEST conferences (like all storytelling gatherings) are a lot more than just workshops and presentations. In-between sessions there was a lat of talking, laughter, dancing, singing, debating, getting to know each other, and solving the great philosophical questions of our time (usually with beer). It was a fun, well organized, informative conference - in three countries at once.

We shall meet again next year in Turkey!

Blame it on Reynard (Following folktales around the world 87. - Belgium)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

Folk tales of Flanders
Jean de Bosschère
Dodd, Mead & Co., 1918.

The book contains twenty-four Flemish folktales, and several beautiful, colorful, occasionally grotesque illustrations. In some cases, the tales had been re-written to fit the sensibilities of the era and an audience of children - in one of the stories, a wife was hiding her "nephew" from her husband, instead of a lover, and in some cases severe punishments were also omitted (although they did unceremoniously hang the Fox). It is a book for children, so it contains no notes or sources, but most of the tale types are easily recognizable, and the author re-told them in an enjoyable, entertaining style.

Highlights

My favorite tale in the book was that of The peasant and the Satyrs. It is rare to find Satyrs in tales outside of Greece, so I was excited for them; in this case, they took the Devil's place in a known tale type (or maybe the other way around?). A poor man got lost in the woods in the winter, and found a little cottage where a Satyr family lived. They invited him in, but when they saw him blowing on his hands to get them warm, and blowing on his soup to make it cool, they concluded he must be a powerful being, for being able to blow both hot and cold...

How the goldfinch got its colors was a lovely tale about how the angel tasked with painting the birds forgot about the finch, and had to paint it with colors taken from other species. This was not the only bird legend in the book; the usual "who can fly higher?" contest here happened between Eagle and Goldcrest. The latter became King of the Birds, but only after they tried to imprison it, and Owl let it escape.

The Goldcrest also led the winged creatures' army in the Battle of Birds and Beasts, which was won by the winged ones - a wasp stung Reynard the Fox, who was holding his tail up as a standard, and the beast thought they had been defeated.
Probably the most famous story included in the book was The Trial of Reynard the Fox. Reynard was called to King Lion's court to answer for his many tricks and crimes. Bruin the Bear, and Tybert the Cat failed to fetch him (he outsmarted both), but eventually Blaireau the Badger managed to get him to court. Reynard, being the quintessential trickster, managed to turn his confession into an accusation against other animals, offered the King some fake treasure, got away, and even had time to kill Hare and send his head back to the King. At the end, he was caught and hanged in some other kingdom. Reynard tales are usually very dark for a trickster...

Connections

Sponsken (Little Sponge) and the Giant reminded me of an American Jack tale; our hero outsmarts a giant, and then teams up with it to defeat a bear, a boar, and a unicorn (!) and win a princess. However,the princess did not want to marry him, so the king found him another, willing bride. Go figure.
The Musicians of Bremen in this case were known as The choristers of St. Gudule - they set out to start a singing career in their old age. Another similar gang started out fleeing from The end of the world, but ended up finding a king's lost ring, and making a lot of money together.
Hansel and Gretel - in this case, Jan and Jeanette - found a Sugar-candy House in the woods, owned by an old lame wolf. The wolf chased them until they crossed a rived, helped by some ducks. When the wolf asked the ducks to ferry him across too, they dumped him into the river.
I was reminded of a Nasreddin tale by The peasant and his ass, in which a foolish man was tricked into believing he was dead, and that his donkey had turned into the captain of the guard.

Ups and downs, in which Fox got Goat to go down into a well, was familiar from the tales of Uncle Remus. Trickster, as we have already seen, was always Fox, specifically a fox named Reynard. He fulfilled the role of Puss in Boots for Poor Peter, and he rescued the knight who saved an ungrateful dragon, by tricking the dragon into going back into the trap. He also tricked Wolf in a "fake baptism" tale type (where he repeatedly sneaked out to steal lard from their shared pantry), and convinced Bear to use his long tail for ice fishing (which is why bears have stumpy tails now).

Where to next?
The Netherlands!