A welcome story for 2025: The three stone-cutters
31/12/2024 - blog
In December I use to reread the two volumes of The Circle of Liars, the collection of philosophical short stories from all over the world from Jean-Claude Carrière, searching for a new story to welcome the New Year. It has become a fascinating ritual, since although the books don’t change, every year I discover in them a story that had got unnoticed until then and suddenly becomes meaningful to me according to my last experiences. As it happened right now with this story, which Carrière attributes to Charles Peguy, but possibly has a more ancient origin, as seems to ... 
Stories at the Festinat
21/04/2024 - blog
Llegeix-me en Català Léeme en Castellano Sometimes we do things without thinking why. For instance, to knock on wood for good luck. Rereading Tony Allan’s The Mythic Bestiary I discovered that this gesture comes from a German woodcutter’s habit: they used tap gently the trunk of a venerable tree, as if they knocked on the door, asking permission before beginning their task. It was a way of paying their respects to the Waldgeist, which literary means «spirit of the forest». In many mythologies of the world appear similar characters, a sort of forest keepers, in charge ... 
Storytelling Week for Adult Audiences in Valencia
20/01/2024 - blog
Llegeix-me en Català Léeme en Castellano Life has many twists and turns: when I released The Night of Spider’s legs I was a storyteller based in Barcelona trying to reconnect with my Empordà roots through the poems of Carles Fages de Climent. Five years later, while rehearsing stories, poems and pieces of music which I was forced to keep in a box due to pandemics and family issues, I can see from my window the Verdera mountains, and if not for electricity, which has covered with light the whole mountain, maybe I might be able to locate the famous enchanted light ... 
The first story for 2024: Nasrudin at war
31/12/2023 - blog
Aquí en Català Aquí en Castellano This year’s folktale comes from a character from oral tradition: Nasrudin, Joha, Shrulek, Affandi… This wise and crazy man present in almost all cultures, characterized by hit the nail on the head through humour. A very touching story which makes me think that sometimes, to follow the example of the crazy seems the only sensible option. They say that long ago, before firearms were invented, one day Nasrudin was sent to war. And there he went, with an arch, but without arrows. A soldier walking beside him said: ― What? You don’t ... 
The Pam Pam Bird and other Stories
06/12/2023 - blog
Aquí en Català Aquí en Castellano My mother said I eat olives like a starling and I wear my hair like a magpie’s nest: no wonder that I have been invited to tell stories at the Bird Festival which is taking place this week at the Natural Park Aiguamolls de l’Empordà. If you want to know why the bee-eater watches the sky so attetively, why each bird has its own way of making a nest, how the partridge sings and where does the Pam Pam bird lives, come to discover it next Saturday listening stories from far and near. Saturday 9th December at 11 h L’Ocell Pam Pam i altres ... 
A story for 2023: the sparrow and the sky
31/12/2022 - blog
This year, as I see I’ve been very little on my blog, it seems as if I had totally forgotten stories. However, although I had not time to write about it yet, I had the luck of being part of a Creative residency in Sigüenza and working under the guidance of Pepito Mateo with six storytellers from different parts of Europe for the creation of a collective performance within the project of the European Network of Storytelling Towns. Sigüenza, Guadalajara, Chevilly-La Rue and next year Bratislava and Italy, are the different stops of this performance that has grown and ... Stories and languages: the seed
16/09/2022 - blog
Although I am not certain of having totally worn out my last pair of iron shoes yet, as I said in my last post written exactly 8 months and a half ago, it seems pretty sure that stories have appeared discreetly again in my new life with a storytelling project which has survived to pandemics and has allowed me to meet again with what I love the most: the art of telling stories. But before telling you about it, I wanted to set the scene for you talking about )babel 0.1(, a multilingual storytelling laboratory I organized with ANIN in 2017 and which was in a certain way ... 
Happy 2022
31/12/2021 - blog
Llegeix-me en Català Léeme en Castellano This year it came often to my mind one motif from folktales which fascinates me extraordinarily: wandering till iron shoes are worn out. It usually appears when a character breaks a taboo: as a punishment, the character won’t reach his or her objective until wearing out the soles of a pair of iron shoes, which is quite challenging, or even more than one pair (in some folktales they even mention a hundred pairs, which sounds quite disappointing). I imagine the character walking without rest, having the impression that this ... 
stories in january
22/01/2021 - blog
Llegeix-me en Català Léeme en Castellano This month of January is time to stay at home and focus on little things, in possible and cozy entertainments, and they are more available than it seems. The new normality has proved fatal for on-site storytelling; stories, however, never die: they just transform and revive in an unexpected and, above all, a creative way. Until recently I felt panicked for improvisation; maybe because I took it like a cough syrup that must to be swallowed than as a game for being able to relish better your more spontaneous imagination. But ... 