THE Scottish International Storytelling Festival has launched its 37th festival programme, with more than 100 events across Scotland.
The festival, organised by TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland), is the world’s largest annual celebration of storytelling, based at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh.
The 11-day programme features artists from Scotland, Turkey, Italy, Ireland, Canada and England under the theme “Bird and Beast”, exploring the relationship between people, animals and the natural world.
The festival will open with Aderyn/Bird, performed by Ailsa Dixon and Ffion Phillips. The production, which sold out during this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, combines Welsh and Scots languages in a collection of magical bird stories.
International highlights include Drut’syla storyteller Shonaleigh joining Turkish performers Nazlı Cevik Azazi and Roza Erdem to blend traditional Anatolian tales with stories passed down through Shonaleigh’s family.
Italian storytellers Paola Balbi and Davide Bardi will present a poetic and musical retelling of Leonardo da Vinci’s early years, while Bologna’s Fraternal Compagnia APS will reinterpret the myth of Daedalus and Icarus in an event marking the centenary of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Dario Fo.
Scottish stories include Tony Bonning and Allison Galbraith sharing tales of a fiery Clydesdale and Bonning’s journey across Scotland with his horse Chief, collecting stories about kelpies during the Year of the Horse.
David Hughes will present stories of the Celtic figure Mad Sweeney alongside the history of Colin MacLeod and the Pollok Free State, exploring themes including community, resistance, belonging and masculinity.
Newly appointed Scots Scriever Claire White will bring music, film and stories from Shetland, while Ailsa Dixon will tell the unusual story of the feral, seaweed-eating sheep of North Ronaldsay.
Among the festival’s major events will be Culture, Democracy and the Stateless Nation, taking place on October 23. The event marks the 20th anniversaries of both the Scottish Storytelling Centre and the National Theatre of Scotland, and will include a conversation between former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and theatre critic Joyce McMillan.
The programme will also mark 20 years of The Man Who Planted Trees, with Richard Medrington, Rick Conte, Elspeth Murray and Dog revisiting the production’s most memorable moments.
Other events include three-hour storytelling sessions led by Donald Smith on the life of St Columba and the legends of Ossian. Finnish storytellers Riikka Palonen and Satu Lankinen will share traditional herding tales and introduce audiences to kulning, a Nordic cow-calling technique.
The festival’s family programme begins on October 10, ahead of the main event. Highlights include a free Family Storytelling Day at the National Museum of Scotland, craft workshops celebrating Samhuinn, storytelling sessions at Edinburgh Zoo and a new show about the Battle of Mons Graupius.
There will also be sensory stories, workshops for children aged seven to 10, and the return of family favourite Macastory.
More than 100 Go Local events will be staged in community halls, pubs and parks across Scotland, with storytellers from Shetland to Dumfries taking part. The festival will also feature Folkloria!, an exhibition of prints and illustrations by Morvern Graham inspired by folklore, wild places, landscape and history.
Culture Cabinet Secretary Màiri McAllan said: "Over nearly four decades, the Scottish International Storytelling Festival has celebrated our nation's rich storytelling traditions, bringing together voices from across Scotland and around the world.
"Backed by multi-year funding from Creative Scotland and the Expanded Festivals Fund, the Scottish Government is proud to support this outstanding, globally significant cultural event.
“As we mark 20 years of the Scottish Storytelling Centre, this year's programme theme, Bird and Beast, captures the deep connection between our stories and the natural world we share. The largest ever Go Local programme underlines the importance the festival places on community, and bringing people together, through events in towns and villages across Scotland.
"I'd encourage everyone to explore this year's programme and discover storytelling's power to connect us with each other and the world around us."
Daniel Abercrombie, Scottish International Storytelling Festival director, said: “We are delighted to present this special moment in Scotland’s storytelling calendar which showcases this wonderful oral tradition across the whole of Scotland.
"The Scottish International Storytelling Festival is a place where creative opportunities are nurtured and where creative risks can be taken, where the tradition is safeguarded and the contemporary is encouraged.
"Our Bird and Beast theme this year allows us a chance to enjoy and explore stories which carry a message about the way humans can understand and respect the planet we share with animals and nature.
"We look forward to welcoming old and new friends this autumn, to celebrate with a programme full of imagination, opportunity and generosity, led with great skill and enthusiasm by our storytellers, for it’s through them that we continue to celebrate and be proud of our storytelling scene in Scotland.”
Tickets for the full programme go on sale on September 15.
