America has them, Columbia has them, Spain and Malaysia have them, and now the Illawarra will have a storytelling festival too.
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Lillian Rodrigues-Pang is a full-time professional storyteller and travels the world to different festivals, so she thought 2022 was about time to act her "slow burning desire" to launch one in the Illawarra.
The Fireflies Multilingual Storytelling Festival runs from June 22 to July 2 with a mix of vegetarian feasts intertwined with performance at Balinese Spice Magic and stand alone performances at the Wollongong Town Hall.
"It's more connective and raw and intimate than a [one-person theatre] show," Rodrigues-Pang said.
"Think about old school storytelling with a person sitting there and a group of people sitting around them, listening intently or laughing together ... from that moment on there's a conversation that's sparked by that shared experience."
The programming will see family-friendly and adult-only performances, all mainly in English but with touches of language from First Nations people, Hungarian, Latvian, Spanish, Persian, Tamil, Arabic and Tiwi Islander.
Rodrigues-Pang will also be performing and said her stories often would draw on her cultural heritage (Latin American) while others may be complete fiction; performer Lajos will be teaching the audience magical calls in Hungarian; while others may incorporate song into their performance.
For program and ticketing details, visit: https://lillistory.squarespace.com/
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