Samova’s new storytelling club in Helsinki! Every third or fourth Thursday of the month, professional storytellers bring their stories to the stage in Theatre Ilmi Ö. Join us for some amazing performances from Finland and abroad.
“I will tell you a truth – I don’t tell these stories to you in English. I will tell them in Fingilsh”
That’s the way how I often start my storytelling performances. For me it’s being honest of my broken English, giving myself a permission to make mistakes and same time giving the audience a permission to smile and laugh with me to my language.
Mobile Dreams UK – 3Troubadours
Three weeks of touring and performing in UK with 3Troubadours and my dear collagues Tom Van Outryve (BE) and Torgrim Mellum Stene (No). In our performance “Mobile Dreams” we mixed the languages, searched the ways to use our own native tongues (Finnish, Dutch and Norwegian) with English (to English speaking audiences).
Language carries so much – it carries my identity
When I speak my native tongue, I expose something about my self. And at the same time I tell something about my home country. Using these different languages together in one show, mixing them together in an understandable plot to the audience. This mix can make a language as a window to different emotions, feelings, attitudes, world views and gives a feeling of musicality of a speech. Our languages are different, they can sound weird and are not easy to understand. Still in a same performance they tell a story about diversity and the same time about culturally rich world we are living in, they tell a story that we are all human.
In UK we performed in more than ten venues – gave few workshops and had countless of conversations with storytellers, artist and audience members about topics of storytelling, multilingual aspects and about situation in UK, in Europe and in the World. And we all understood how we need these international collaborations – to learn and to be inspired by the others and to find ways to take storytelling and our own art to new dimensions. Working together we understand who we are – within small stories and fragments of our native tongues we understand our differences and in the end we understand how similar we are.
Thank to you all who we met on our journey! Thanks all of you who supported us, helped us to make the tour happen! And a big thanks for their support to Nordic Culture Point, City of Helsinki Cultural Office and Norwegian Arts Abroad/STIKK!
And thanks for the Tea!
Some feedback from the audience:
A wonderful blend of languages, cultures and imagery. Loved it. – Birmingham
3Troubadours are original, engaging, funny, poignant & moving with a fresh way of combining their unique renditions with improvisation, song, native language…A must see. – Sidmouth
3Troubadours are able to speak of their dreams and cares, of death, of life; buckets of blood wisdom found here; all was male vulnerability and male strength, strong medicine, and good hearts. – Newhaven
At Midsummer I’ll be joining the FEST Conference 2017– Stories In Borderlands. Finnish storytelling organization Samova Storytelling has been a member of FEST Inpo since 2013 and at this year’s conference we’ll represent Samova with my collague Ilkka Hautala. (At the same time I will represent Art in Integreation -project Story Sharing Universum and multilingual storytelling trio 3Troubadours.) The conference will be followed by a two-day storytelling festival in Northern Ireland, where I will share a stage with some great storytellers from different parts of Europe. Looking forward to meet old and new friends and to be inspired by conversations and new ideas for collaboration. See you at Ireland!
FEST (Federation for European Storytelling) promotes the mobility of ideas and collaborations in and across Europe. By offering mechanisms for sharing, learning, advocacy and relationship building, it wishes to empower the world of storytelling. FEST is an international non-profit organisation (INPO) based in Belgium but with membership all across Europe. www.fest-network.eu
Storytelling in Borderlands – PROGRAMME
Conference workshop topics will include: Storytelling and Education; Storytelling with Refugees and New Migrants; Storytelling in Minority Languages; Storytelling and Conflict Resolution; Stories in Translation; Storytelling and Contemporary Culture; Reminiscence Work and Story-collecting from Dementia Patients; Oral and Written Stories; and more.
Join us at Shaibalaiba! Story Café, a cosy gathering of storytellers, every first Friday of the month. There is an open stage for anyone who has a story to tell, as well as featured guest storytellers every month. Some of the events will be hosted in Finnish and some in English.
Samova’s new storytelling club starts in 2017! Every third Friday of the month, professional storytellers bring their stories to the stage in Theatre Ilmi Ö. Join us for some amazing performances from Finland and abroad.
Teatteri Ilmi Ö, Iso Roobertinkatu 10 B (Always at 6pm)
We have been working really hard to make our tour in the UK happen and finally all comes together. Our working period in the UK starts at 11th of April with Guest House Storytellers in Newhaven and ends at 29th of April at The Bureau in Blackburn.
Altogether we are planning to have twelve Mobile Dreams performances but some of them are still in the works. Stay tuned for the complete list of tour dates & venues!
Our work is made possible by Nordic Culture Point and the grant we did receive from them at the end of last year. Great thanks! We are ready to go.
Mobile Dreams UK – 3Troubadours
In UK we performed in more than ten venues – gave few workshops and had countless of conversations with storytellers, artist and audience members about topics of storytelling, multilingual aspects and about situation in UK, in Europe and in the World. And we all understood how we need these international collaborations – to learn and to be inspired by the others and to find ways to take storytelling and our own art to new dimensions. Working together we understand who we are – within small stories and fragments of our native tongues we understand our differences and in the end we understand how similar we are.
At Midsummer I’ll be joining the FEST Conference 2017– Stories In Borderlands. Finnish storytelling organization 
Shaibalaiba! – Story Café
