Story Telling Festival in Italy | 2018

“Stories are our roots pointing to our roads…”

Traditional stories represent the roots of people, their heritage and cultural identity. Re-telling myths and traditional stories is like digging out a treasure hidden among the roots of the trees in your garden. When people are rooted in their culture and remember their stories, they feel safe and are able to relate with one another with open hearts. Remembering and telling traditional stories helps to build mutual understanding and cultural exchange.

Stories since very old times have also travelled with storytellers on the roads connecting the world and reached far away lands. By travelling, stories create cultural bridges among distant people.

2018 was declared the European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH) by the European Union. In line with this initiative, Raccontamiunastoria, the most established storytelling company in Italy founded by artists Paola Balbi and Davide Bardi, conceptualized and curated an International Storytelling Festival on the theme “Roots and Roads” in Rome in June 2018.

The festival was hosted in Appia Antica Park and aimed to promote the tangible heritage of the archeological site and landscape through storytelling.

In September 2018, Raccontamiunastoria collaborated with storytelling company Sagapò Teatro to create a festival around the same theme in Bolzano (north Italy).

Both the festivals featured storytellers from around the world and incorporated interdisciplinary performances to encourage dialogues between storytelling and other art forms including music, dance, painting and photography.

“Imagine telling traditional tales from India in English to a largely Italian speaking audience! The two festivals in Italy that I had the pleasure to be part of in 2018 were culturally enriching to say the least. It led to a lot of spontaneous collaborations with both international and local tellers. We used the technique of simultaneous creative translations to bring the stories to the Italian audience. The festival was a real meeting of languages, cultures, hearts and minds.”