FESTIVAL: Stories from the North

By Synne Marie Lillenes

A little over a month has passed since we visited Morocco, and I’ve gotta say; I miss it!

Stepping off the plane and into the hot, dry air of the moroccan inlands was an experience all on its own. As a person who always gets cold on planes, no matter what, I instantly regretted what I like to call the incognito celebrity look. Also, never having been to Africa before, this was both a milestone for me and a lesson in appropriate flightwear. 

StorySquad became a part of Confluence the World a bit more than a year ago, a mere two days after setting up our facebook page. Imagine if answering and meeting all of the strangers who contact you on the internet would lead to adventures such as this!  Each time we meet with our fellow Confluencers, the Confluence family seems to grow, or maybe I just realise it's bigger than I thought. This trip was definitely no exception. I had heard so much about the Moroccan Confluence the World team, and I couldn't wait to be able to put faces with the names, although I had been in touch with several on instagram already. Cause if there's one thing I learned, even before travelling there, Moroccans are not afraid to contact strangers online. And I was glad! Being one of two members of StorySquad that hadn't already met a lot of these people, I still felt like I kind of knew them. And not only the Moroccan team. The rest of the Scottish/English team as well and of course those I had already met at our residency in Scotland.

In our luggage this time, we had with us two stories from the north, and we had no idea these stories would generate so many new ones. I had heard that storytelling was a big thing in Morocco, but I had no idea how much storytelling actually meant to the locals. I just thought we had found kindred spirits through Confluence. I mean we did find kindred spirits, but we also found so much culture, tradition and respect for our art! The first night of the festival, “Visions and Stories” Karla Suzanne and I performed our brand new duo “Fenris” at Cafe Clock. A super cool riad café with urban artwork all over with traditional touches. Which I also feel perfectly describes the dish Camel Burger, which they served. Yet again, I learned a lesson in being weather appropriate, but this time, stage attire. You do not wear jeans and a hoodie as your performance clothes in 35 °C. Obviously says you, “meh it's only 20 minutes” says I. (which would be OK, had I not forgotten to bring a t-shirt.) No worries, dear reader, it all went great! 

StorySquad has its own style of storytelling. I mean we do storytelling, but we also use effects from theatre, movies and music to convey the story. I think expectations are always high when someone brings something new to any kind of tradition. Non are of course as high as the expectations you set to yourself when you’re the one doing it. That’s why I'm so grateful that the audience of storytellers are without a doubt the nicest audience anyone could ever have. Now I know it might sound like our performance went south, it really didn’t, it went great! I just wished I could have thanked every single person in the audience for their enthusiasm the night of the performances in Musée de Moussaine. We felt so much love from everyone that night and for our dear hero princess, Vilja.

The square of Jemaa el Fna. It was definitely as busy as I thought it would be. In the daytime, there were men with snakes, monkeys and creative - also not so creative, ways to compliment me on my yellow hair, I even got an impromptu improvised rap made about it. At night, the square was different, not that different really but still different. It seemed like all the lamp merchants had come out of the souk to brighten up the square with candle light. Games I had never seen before were being played, the snakes had been switched with what we in Norway call snake people (contortionists) and acrobats. The flutes once used to tame the snakes had been replaced by musicians playing both traditional, and not so traditional pieces. And then there was us. A master storyteller and his daughter, young apprentice storytellers, experienced storytellers and two storytellers from Norway who didn't really understand how big of a deal this actually was. Jemaa el Fna is on UNESCOs list of world heritage for it’s over a thousand years old tradition of storytelling happening there. Apparently there hadn’t been storytellers there in a while, but tonight the Halqa returned to the square. 

Image © Tonje Gulbaek Barstad

According to locals, a successful Halqa has three circles of audience, from the very beginning, this had been exceeded. All though the master storyteller told in arabic, and the only words we understood were salam and insha allah, we were mesmerized by the melody of the story, the movements, the rhythm and also by the fact that it was now our turn. And we had never done this choreographed story in a circle before. More people had gathered around.  I’m not sure how many there were but it’s safe to say this was one of the largest audiences we had ever had. Earlier that day we had gotten a question on how we handled interruptions from the audience when performing. And I have to say, we didn’t really have a good answer for that as it had never really been something we had to deal with, until now. Mid-story a little boy came wandering in to the centre of the Halqa whilst we were busy making a chain out of things that do not exist, asking for our names. As we at this time were witches, we told him we had no names, and proceeded with the making of the chain. He left, but came back some seconds later, dragging his mother behind him. He was upset because we wouldn’t tell him our names and there was no consoling him. So of course, we sat down and whispered our names to him and told him he had to keep it a secret, us being witches and all. He promised he wouldn’t. And as it so would happen, we needed well behaving boys in our cauldron to make the chain, and he willingly obliged, becoming a part of the story. Another thing worth mentioning was the willingness of the mostly adult audience to help us lift imaginary chains and making lightning and thunder from beginning to end. 

I am so glad we missed the information given to us before the performance in Jemaa El Fna. I mean it. Had I known what I would actually be doing I´m not sure it would have gone that well. You see, even though storytellers had been telling stories in that square for over a thousand years, no foreigners had ever been allowed to do so, until tonight. Until us. We were the first. Two young female storytellers from Norway. I have to say, it was one of the biggest moments of my life, and I didn’t even know it was happening. 

The confluence family is love. I know it’s a clichè to say so, but cliches are cliches for a reason, either because they work or because they’re true. I am so grateful for all the memories and stories created the eight days I spent here. There are so many more things I wanna include in this blogpost. Like the Confluence Women’s talk, building bridges between women of different cultures, understanding each other, helping each other. Listening to the incredibly strong, bold, beautiful young Moroccan women fight for what they believe in. 

Late nights on the roof top terraces of various riads in Marrakech with good friends. Travelling to the seaside and being the only one who went swimming (I’m a northerner, I really couldn’t help myself). 

I know I left Morocco with more stories than I had when I came. 

Image © Tonje Gulbaek Barstad