Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival

Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival takes place in South Wales, in the grounds of St. Donat’s Castle, on terraced gardens leading down to the sea. This year there is an amazing line up of storytellers and musicians.

I will be hoping to catch performances by many friends. Xanthe Gresham will be performing bits from Persian epic, The Shahname with Arash Moradi. Dan Yashinsky is coming from Canada bringing his repertoire of  delicate heart filled tales. Hedwig Rost and Jörg Baesecke bring – Die Kleinste Buhne Der Welt – their  miniature surreal puppet theatre in a suitcase! Almas Almatov, a Zyrau – epic bard – from Kazakhstan, transports you to the steppe, and brings the deep sense of how important the bard is to Central Asian people. There is superb kelzmer music from She’koyokh, and luscious Persian classical music from Vahdat Ensemble. TUUP is one of my all time favourite tellers, and he will be entering a trance to tell Indian myth ‘The King and the corpse’. Then we will all dance like crazy, from post performance relief, on Sunday night to TUUP’s band – Transglobal Underground.

I will be performing ‘The Three Snakes Leaves’ with The Company Of Storytellers – Hugh Lupton and Ben Haggarty and musicians Dylan Fowler and Gillian Stevens. I will also tell a bit of Central Asian epic Dede Korkut.  I just hope that we get some sunshine!

Beyond the Border Friday 29th June to Sunday 1st July 2012 St Donats Castle, Vale of Glamorgan,South Wales. Click here for booking information and tickets