Cassandra: Capacity Building for the Socially Engaged Storyteller: CASSANDRA

Programme(s): Creative Europe Programme (CREA)

Topic(s): CREA-CULT-2023-COOP-1

Type of action: CREA Lump Sum Grants

Project ID: 101129718

Objective: Oral storytelling is a performing art and has a great potential as a tool for communication, for civic & cultural participation, for heritage interpretation and value assessment. International differences in values, perception, and interpretation, social challenges related to inclusion and equality, make us revalue the role of art and culture for society. It also unveils the need for specific capacity building in the cultural sector to realise this role. The general objective of the Cassandra project is to build capacity for storytellers as ‘socially engaged performers’: how can a storyteller convey personal messages and deal with social challenges through performative and artistic strategies. It also wants to raise the capacity of storytellers and storytelling organisations to work internationally, to reach new audiences and better pick up the new role of art and culture for society. To this end the Cassandra team (FEST, a European wide storytelling network, and 5 international storytelling festival organisers from BE, NL, SE, NO, PL) will develop a curriculum, training material and organise a course for young storytellers and festival organisers. This course involves two international face-to-face training sessions and a (local) co-creative community engagement phase, monitored by experienced trainers & mentors, in cooperation with the festival organisers. This will lead to the creation of socially embedded performances that will be showcased by the young storytellers on international festivals. Parallel, and in a complementary process, the festival organisers will work on techniques and methods to better cooperate in an international context, to attract new audiences, to promote European values. The materials and outcomes from these processes will be available and will serve as a basis for a series of seminars and training for storytellers and artists who want to stress or improve value sharing and social engagement in their performances.