Great stories well told can evoke indelible images in the mind of the listener, offering visitors and locals a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the extraordinary tales, music and characters that bring both our contemporary and traditional culture to life.
The Scottish International Storytelling Festival brings together a large number of Scottish and international storytellers and musicians. It takes place in October each year, as the seasons change with long nights drawing families and friends around the hearth, inspired by the Scottish ceilidh tradition and its sense of togetherness – a community gathering full of tales, anecdotes, music, songs and ballads.
Performance, workshops, talks and children’s events radiate out from Scotland’s capital, as the best of Scotland’s storytelling talent merge with invited global guests, offering a plethora of opportunities to celebrate and discover oral traditions and cultural diversity.
- Storytelling is not a form of theatre – of course its entertainment, but it’s not a passive art form. The audience are part of the performance.
- Expect to be put in a relaxed frame of mind and enjoy a blend of story and music.
- The imagination of the audience is central to the performance and is what creates the true storytelling experience.
- Although each event has a structure, there will always be an informal and improvised element, which is the beauty of live storytelling, echoing the old Traveller proverb that ‘a story is told eye to eye, mind to mind, heart to heart’.
