Festival of Indigenous Storytellers in Darjeeling this December

GANGTOK, 16 Oct: The 3rd Confluence, Festival of Indigenous Storytellers, 2012 is being organised at Darjeeling this year from 07-10 December. The 3-day event will showcase various storytelling traditions (including shamanic oral traditions) and will include storytellers from various tribal communities across the country, alongside professional storytellers.
This festival is the flagship event of Acoustic Traditional which brings our vanishing indigenous storytellers, every year, from across the country with a view to share and celebrate the different oral storytelling traditions and indigenous folklore and to support a growing outreach platform through which the voices of mountain and forest tribal communities can not only reach a national audience but also find relevance in urban India (through their stories).
As per a press release, this year, the festival focuses on the oral history and folklore of the Eastern Himalayas. With Acoustic Traditional’s ongoing One Tribe tour based on the documentation of the folklore of Jhamphey Mung (or the legendary snow creature in the region), the event includes a special highlight on Lepcha storytellers from Lingthem, Lingdem and Tinvong villages of Dzongu (the sacred land of the Lepcha tribal people) alongside Kiranti storytellers from across Sikkim and Darjeeling.
The festival includes various activities, workshops, special sessions, field visits, etc., to help enrich our understanding of this vanishing aspect of indigenous communities, vis-a-vis their cultural, spiritual and scientific linkages and importance, apart from the idea of keeping this ancient tradition alive.
With storytellers from across Manipur, Nagaland, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerela and from the mainstream storytelling arena, the 3-day event will showcase a diverse range of ancient storytelling traditions from across the country, the release mentions.
Initiated in 2010, with support from Sikkim State Culture and Heritage Department, Confluence, has been moving spaces over the last two years to include a larger participation of local communities.
The last date of registration for participants is 20 November. For more information you can contact acoustic.traditional@gmail.com.