The storyteller

The story teller is a profession that’s dying. Yearly in  the small Spanish village of Chelva a storytelling festival takes places. At the night of San Anton a Piper lures you to different spots in the village where a professional storyteller tells his/her story. Sometimes standing on a balcony, other times around a fire at the square. It’s magical. pre-technology entertainment.

We humans love stories. It’s perhaps one of the oldest art forms. We tell stories about what we did today, what people did long ago and what people are going to do in the future. We combine truth with imagination. We believe in people that never existed, Bilbo Baggins, Pippi Longstocking, Captain Nemo. There are thousands of characters that entered our culture. Stories about far away countries, wonders and magic. Stories about things that are impossible, but we believe them.

A storyteller has the power of the imagination. And here, in this photo we see the storyteller at work. There’s a respectable silence. People are listening with bated breath, swept away from one exciting moment to the next. With inflection and intonation the story teller binds it’s audience with a magic spell. Until the last sentence reveals and brings it all together.

I don’t know what the story is about in this photo. I only know that there is a tension and attention, a waiting and excitement. All these emotions pass and you try to tune in too. To listen to the photo, trying to catch something of what is told. Perhaps if you close your eyes and open your ears you can hear the photo speak.