Perhaps... A Double Portrait: the Amiens Festival and Picardy Storyteller Laurent Devimes
by Sam Yada Cannarozzi

ad you strolled through Central Park, New York in the early 90’s, near the Alice in Wonderland statue, you might have chanced upon Laurent Devimes, French marionnetist/storyteIler. It was there for a few years that he set up his Back Pack Puppet Theater.

I first met him a short time earlier in the company of another friend and artist, Daniel L’Homond, who lives near the prehistoric caves of Lascaux in west France. We were invited to tell at the 1000th anniversary of the Capetian line of Kings near the town of Chantilly. (No, not "Chantilly lace or a pretty face" because Chantilly is actually French for whipped cream and originated here.) Laurent said something that has always stayed with me: "The Storyteller is the actor’s jazz-man."

That’s why I was thrilled to run into him again at the Storytelling and Calligraphy Festival held each fall for the past four years in Amiens, about an hour, north of Paris. It’s a wonderful combination of Arabic, Persian, Oriental and Western calligraphic styles and the living word, in the presence of professional calligraphers and tellers from all over and a program of performances and exhibitions. This year Rafik Harbaoui (Egypt), Margrethe Hojlund (Denmark), Manfei Obin (Ivory Coast) among others, alternated shows and matinees for young and old as Denise Lach-Geng from Alsace-Lorraine, held work-shops for highschoolers and lectured for adults.

On my last evening I was cordially invited to a small restaurant where I marinated stories and cuisine to a full house of avid gastronomic listeners. I adapted the Sri Lankan tale "The 3 Princes of Serendip" to a menu of local specialities, a spicy oriental chicken and dessert from Brittany. We finished around midnight with handshakes and back slaps, and festival director Brahim Benabbad from Morocco was convinced that this initiative would become a regular of future festivals. The final evening promised to be long and envigorating with eight men and women tellers including Laurent Devimes, telling late into the night. More than 5,000 listeners this year makes the festival one of the city’s high quality cultural events. Next year’s theme is already under study. And A.C.I.P. a well-known community social center and organizer as well as specialized in programs for local immigrant populations, continues to expand activities. So, perhaps ... one autumn if you visit this lovely cathedral town you’ll stop in for a listen. They’ll sure to be words for the palate and tastes for the ears!

Between two days of performing, Laurent Devimes kindly invited me for dinner to his countryside house. But what I didn’t expect was a personalized storytold tour of the neighborhood. Laurent calls himself, and is recognized as, a regional storyteller, meaning he speaks one of France’s many dialects or languages such as Provencale, Celtic or Basque. But just as importantly, as one who integrates this linguistic capacity in preserving customs, traditions and, of course, legend and story of a specific area.

He often uses a personal story signature opening, "I heard this story from my Grandmother who claims to have seen the child with the head of a toad!" And in his repertoire he has developed the local wise fool character known as LaFleur with a Nasrudin-Till Eulenspiegel type personality. I think of Laurent as an intuitive researcher with soul. After dinner he chauffeured me around to nearby legendary and historic sites. It was after 10 PM in a light fog and under a crescent moon that he recounted how 17 centuries ago St. Gratian came to this very spot, planted his staff which immediately created a fresh water spring, flowered into a hazelnut tree and, taking root, provided him leafy shelter.

Just down the road we stopped at a small pond noted for the peculiar phenomen in of the "puits tournants" or freshwater whirlpool, actually an underwater source and sometimes dangerous. Legend has it that it swallowed up nobles as well as lovers, whose puckered kisses are supposedly still heard in the whirlpool’s suction. Another belief was that pregnant women strolled the shores hoping the blue spring water would so color their children’s eyes.

And I also savored his Moonfisher stories common to his native Picardy and other parts of the world as well. As he droped me off at my hotel with the taste of the delicious honey wine cordial he served me at dinner still lingering, he related yet a last anecdote about a recently built neo-Byzantine church.

Perhaps you’ll meet Laurent Devimes one day. And if you’d like to give him a pleasant surprise, greet him with his own local Picardy password — "Your house is burning!" Oh, don’t worry, because he will immediately answer with a smile — "That’s OK, I’ve got the house key in my pocket!"

The Amiens Festival is held annually from the end of November to the beginning of December. Contact Mr. Brahim Benabbad,c/o A.C.I.P., 10 rue Condorcet,80090, Amiens, FRANCE 011 33 3 22 47 61 72

—published in WIP Summer 1999

Back to top.