Info taken from : http://www.alden-biesen.be
Storytelling festival
For storytelling it is hard to imagine a more beautiful environment than a
castle where you, inside and outside, during the day and at dusk, can enjoy a
romantic story, a creepy story, a thrilling story, a funny story ….
Since
thirteen years now the Landcommanderij Alden Biesen is the scenery for an
international storytelling festival. Story tellers from many countries bring
stories for young and old and they all tell in their mother tongue. In the
programme we opt for story telling and simple ‘storytelling theatre’, no
‘special effects’ but an appeal to one’s fantasy and imagination.
A
festival of languages
The Alden Biesen storytelling festival lasts 9
days. During the week the programme is oriented towards students and adult
learners. About 100 schools send 12.000 pupils and students to the festival.
For
youngsters the stories are in Dutch but from 16+ on one can choose between
Dutch, English, French and German, the 4 languages Flemish schools have in
their
curriculum. “I speak to more teenagers in one week here in Alden Biesen than in
a full year in The States” says Dovie Thomason, a Sioux-indian storyteller from
the USA, telling at the 2007 festival. She is very much surprised about the
fact
that we successfully attract teenagers to a story telling festival. Daniel
Morden (GB), Dan Yashinsky (Canada) en Rachid Akbal (France) confirm: “In our
country we tell stories for children and for adults, teenagers don’t take part
in it. What happens here is unknown to us.
Students from higher
education also attend the festival: groups from the foreign language and
teacher
training departments. Recently the festival also runs a programme for adult
education (evening classes foreign languages). We offer native speakers for the
German, French, English, Spanish and Italian classes and a Flemish storyteller
for immigrant groups who learn Dutch as a foreign language.
During the
weekend the festival has a programme for families and adults with story walks,
multilingual story telling evenings, aperitif sessions and a Sunday afternoon
festival including street theatre and music.
The 2008 festival with
36 story tellers, 200 hours of story telling and 19.500 tickets turns the Alden
Biesen festival into one of the largest storytelling festivals in Europe.
Dates 2008: 14 – 22 April
Booked for 2008: Ben Haggarty (GB),
Nick Hennessey (GB), Len Cabral (USA), Rachid Akbal (FR), Italia Gaeta (BE, fr.
It.), Katy Cawkwell (GB), Wouter Wuyts (BE), David Ambrose (GB), Bob Seven
Crows
(CAN), Nathalie Bondoux (FR), Martin Ellrodt (DE), Frank Degruyter (BE), Warre
Borgmans (BE), Lino Berrocal (NL, SP) and many more.
More info: Guy
Tilkin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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