on November 28, the 8 th floor reading room of the National Library of Latvia will host the “storytelling: text, performance, Community” conference in Latvia.
Telling the stories of places, things and people, every local Community from different angles expresses, articulates, creates, strengthens and transforms their identity while making and enriching their own cultural space.
2024 was a rough and rich year for Latvian storytellers: VIII Great storytelling night at Catlakalns, VII Vidzeme storytelling Festival, IX Latgale storytelling Festival “Omotu stuosti” and many more beautiful events. In July, at the School of storytellers in Catlakala, we watched the Edgar Lipora object Theatre in a story about the Cockles family, while at a seminar in October with the creative association Theatre in Azotic, we tried to understand the issues addressed in the show “Where the camel rolls,” how to create a story with language through the movement that can be told in sign language in parallel. Therefore, the focus of the IX Latvian narrator conference on performance seems legitimate as a special model of the cultural ecosystem, which, as a work of art based on action and event with a carefully thought-out aesthetic or visual language, suggests the narrator's possibilities to be in dialogue with performance, to become a creator of performance, because, as Laine Kristberga and Laura Feldberg put it, “the author will always be at the centre with his own world view, originality and ability to create a real moment of experience for himself and the viewer.”
IX Special moments of experience of the Latvian Conference of narrators:
• meeting performance experts Laine Kristberga, Simone Orinsky, Laura Feldberg and their different aspects of performance stories,
• meeting LU LFMI lead researcher Sanda Lyme and his just-released book, “indicator of Latvian say types and motives: witches,” and his story of what to do with this edition,
• meeting Eve Wheatall, lead researcher at the LKA Institute of Culture and Arts, to hear the story of the cultural-historical research-expedition “Gauja. 44 bridges.”
Also on the agenda of the conference is an overview of the activity of storytelling libraries in five historical lands of Latvia, the plans of the Latvian storytellers Association for 2025 and the participation of Latvian storytellers in regional storyteller festivals and the international folklore festival “Baltica 2025”, as well as an insight into the current events of “Latvian Book 500” together with LNB Director Dagnija Baltins.
For more information: https://www.lnkc.gov.lv/lv/jaunums/28-novembri-norisinasies-ix-latvijas-stastnieku-konference