/ARTS WEEKLY/ COLOMBIA: A Talent for Stories

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yadira Ferrer

BARRANQUILLA, Colombia, Aug 26 2003 (IPS) - Sociologist, piano teacher, mother of three and grandmother of four, Inés Grimland decided at age 55 that the time had come to dedicate herself to what she really wanted to do: be a storyteller.

Grimland, born in the Ukraine and an Argentine citizen, arrived in Barranquilla, on the northern Colombian coast, as did Venezuelan Nilde Silva, Cuban Joel Sánchez, and Spain’s Antonio González, to take part in the Sixth International Storytelling Festival of the Caribbean Basin.

At a special event last week in a small park in a neighbourhood of Colombians who have been displaced from their homes by the ongoing armed conflict, Grimland shared her most valuable treasures of words with an audience of 60 children and 20 adults.

From a little box she pulled a piece of a napkin and set it on fire. But before it turned completely to ashes, she made it into a flower, tossing it into the air and convincing everyone that it was, in fact, a flower.

She said that the trick was one her uncle taught her when she was a girl, and she went on to tell her stories.

Juan Carlos Segura, 14, told IPS that he liked Grimland’s tales "because they have magic," and María Reyes, his grandmother, said they reminded her of when she was young "and we’d all sit at nightfall in the doorway and listen to the stories the older people would tell."

Grimland admitted to IPS that telling stories gave her a way to escape the daily routine.

"For so many years I did everything that a woman is expected to do," in other words, study, work, get married, and take care of the husband and the children, "and make sure everyone is happy. But the time came when I decided to make a break, and do what I really wanted, which was to enter the world of storytelling."

"The stories have taken me by the hand. I don’t know where we’re headed, but the path and the voyage have been wonderful," she said.

In Buenos Aires, Grimland has a radio programme in which she tells her stories. She also conducts workshops for adults who want to share their stories and strengthen ties with their cultural roots.

Primo Rojas, a Bogotá actor and playwright with studies in law and anthropology, decided to follow the storytelling route, and he assures he needs nothing else in order to live.

He is considered one of Colombia’s best storytellers, both for the themes he covers and for his interpretive talents. His mix of dark humour and spectacle, with everyday language and ironic criticism of social conventions has won him a strong following..

Venezuelan storyteller Nilde Silva, who holds degrees in education and fine arts, grew up with his mother’s tales. "She told me to talk to the plants so they would grow up beautiful, and I would tell them the stories that she would tell us at lunch," she said in an conversation with IPS.

In high school, the seed of storytelling continued to germinate, and the first such experience Silva remembers is when she was assigned to read "One Hundred Years of Solitude", by Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez.

"When it was my turn I began to recount what I had read, and everyone was so caught up in the story that I narrated the entire book, in three-hour sessions over three days," says Silva.

She works in Barquisimeto, in northwest Venezuela, and is a co-founder of the National Union of Storytellers in her country.

Manuel Sánchez, a member of the storytelling festival’s organising committee, says the fact that this event has taken place the last six years, proves that "despite the crisis afflicting the cultural industry, we continue to believe in the immense possibilities of art."

Luneta 50, the non-governmental group that organised the festival, had to shut its doors in Barranquilla due to lack of funds. But the group decided to continue the storytelling festival. This year’s event wrapped up on Aug. 25.

Sánchez says the economic crisis hurts, but "the artists don’t go on strike. They’re generous and the public expects that this festival is going to take place each year."

Marjorie Eljach, a storyteller from the host city of Barranquilla, holds degrees in literature and computer science, used her talents to reveal that women, too, are storytellers, and delighted audiences with tales of the relationships between the sexes..

Oscar Corredor, of Bogotá, is a theatre and television actor, as well as a psychologist. His approach is essentially urban, underscoring human conflicts, big and small, with a strange touch of humour.

Iván Torres, also of Bogotá, is a political scientist, playwright and anthologist. He got is his start as a storyteller in 1990, and is known for his poems about "little things".

This year’s special guest was Jorge Abshana, a storyteller from the indigenous Wayuú community in the northern Colombian city of Uribia. He works as a conflict mediator, and the stories he shared with the festivalgoers in Barranquilla included anecdotes from his conciliatory effort