Yet another Festival to entertain you. The tickets have gone on sale today for the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh.
The 2014 Scottish International Storytelling Festival starts on 24 October and runs for ten days until 2 November. The programme is themed ‘Once Upon a Place’ and celebrates Edinburgh’s reputation worldwide as a city bursting with culture, as well as being the world’s first UNESCO designated City of Literature.
Scotland is welcoming the world in 2014 and in this Year of Homecoming, the Storytelling Festival is an important event on the Homecoming calendar, bringing together home-grown talent and acclaimed storytellers from across the world to tell their tales and enthral audiences. The Scottish International Storytelling Festival is the perfect event for everyone from home or abroad who wants to explore what is distinctive and special about Scotland and its international connections, with a programme that combines storytelling ceilidhs with talks, landscape tours and specially commissioned performances, and the finale weekend marks the ancient Celtic New Year of Samhain/Hallowe’en.
There will be special events commemorating the great storytellers and thinkers of Edinburgh including Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and John Fee – a storyteller who had a fantastic backdrop of Old Town Tales that have been gathered into a book.
Highlights of the programme include:
- Open Hearth Sessions – celebrating common humanity and stories and songs that connect across the continents.
- European Seeing Stories Series – celebrates the magic of place and looks to the future in terms of sustainability and conservation.
- Halloween celebrations including ‘Ballads and Tales of the Supernatural’ at the Storytelling Centre and ‘Haunted Tales of Old Edinburgh’ at the Museum of Edinburgh.
There is also a fantastic children’s line-up including ‘Tales of a Granny’ at the National Museum of Scotland and ‘Tales of a Grandson’ at the Festival Theatre. There will be stories of animal antics at ‘Down on the Farm in Gorgie’ at Gorgie City Farm and several traditional story telling events throughout the festival.
Special exhibitions on display during the festival at the National Library of Scotland, include a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley as well as a special exhibition of personal stories marking the centenary of the First World War, called ‘Behind the Lines’.
This year storytelling goes on tour as the festival reaches out with Edinburgh with events taking place across Scotland including; Glasgow, Dundee, Fife, Aberdeen, Perthshire, Orkney, the Isle of Bute, Oban and the Scottish Borders with storytellers telling tales of local traditions, landscapes and history.
Festival Director Donald Smith explains more:
“We are delighted to present the programme for this year’s festival; it’s packed with exciting events and a fantastic mix of homegrown storytelling talent and as well as global visiting storytellers. The theme of place is key to us, as Edinburgh is such an inspiring city. Over the years it has produced an array of wonderful writers, some of whom we’ll pay our respects to during the festival, and as an ever evolving vibrant place it continues to inspire year on year. I’m also very pleased that we are able to reach out beyond the city limits with a programme of events taking place throughout Scotland.”
The major strands of SISF 2014 Once Upon a Place are supported by the Scottish Government Edinburgh Festival Expo Fund, and the Festival is launched by Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs:
‘I am delighted once again to see such a rich and diverse range of tales on offer at this year’s Scottish International Storytelling Festival, played out through story and song, to celebrate the importance of places to our cultural life in Scotland. The theme of Once Upon a Place is particularly apt, in this the 2014 Year of Homecoming.
‘The Scottish Government is pleased to be supporting the 2014 Festival through our Edinburgh Festival Expo Fund. The Festival will enhance and creatively communicate a shared experience of place, by bringing together local and international dimensions. From projects inspired by the bicentenary of Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, to Storytelling for a Greener World, there is an exciting array of events to engage and inspire.’
For the full line-up, to book tickets and find out more call 0131 556 9579 or go to www.tracscotland.org/festivals/scottish-international-storytelling-festival
The Festival Box Office opens from the 1 October.
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Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
