A Novena of Stories
by Sam Yada Cannarozzi

Southern Sweden near mid-summer 1996.

n your next trip through France when you’ve tired of the sights in Paris and on the Riviera, why not take a well merited side-trip down the Rhìne Valley to an area called la Drìme, and stop over in the tiny town of Poât Celard. There is a castle there and in that castle the offices of a storytelling festival.

The festival is called The Novena Storytelling Festival. It is not a religious festival, simply, the nine communities around Poât Celard (by the way, Poât here means "a well") invite nine different storytellers for nine evenings to share their art. What else could one call that but a novena?! And each year for the past eight, there are nine new tellers. The local population is treated to a wonderful palate of tastes and cultures and that way you can’t accuse the organizers of harboring favorites.

The original idea for this unique festival goes back over 10 years and was the dream of a pantomime artist-blacksmith-teller and has since blossomed into a delightful, cultural event. The Festival Director Waness Melsen from the Flanders area of Belgium and Jacqueline Goguc from near by, put the festival together each year and have since the beginning been flirting with, if not playing outright hide and seek with, a philosophy for the Novena. As Waness explains, at first they were especially interested in the content of story. Then came the realization that the storyteller him or herself brought as much to the story as what was told. But then they found themselves in a technological spiral in which certain storytellers were beginning to ask for complicated installations with dozens of projectors, and logistics that surpassed the audience they were targeting. At one time they also looked at all kinds of literature as matter for story and hosted artists who were telling short stories and doing literary readings.

And now they have come full-circle. This year’s festival was a jewel, with 9 outdoor performances (only one was rained out and rescheduled in a lovely chapel) to audiences of 100-150 people preceded by a buffet. This year the festival featured tellers from Haiti, Morroco, a presentation of the ancient epic of Gilgamesh (Sumeria), stories accompanied by cello and the African cora and even pieces from the great French writer, Balzac. Add to this a specialized bookstore and crafts exhibition and readings, as well as two open stages for beginning tellers and you have a dream come true.

Most festivals are proud when they pass the ten year mark, but as you can imagine, Waness Melsen is particularly excited about next year’s anniversary because it is the ninth one. Nine novenas of stories. Doesn’t that just sound like the beginning of some fairytale?!

The festival is held each year beginning in August.
For more information contact:
Waness Melsen
La Neuvaine du Conte
Le Chateau- Poât Celard
26460 FRANCE

—published in WIP Winter 1997

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