Annual Taos Storytelling Festival

TAOS, N.M. - Oct. 13, 2015 - PRLog -- On October 23-24, SOMOS, the Literary Society of Taos, will present its sixteenth annual Taos Storytelling Festival at the Taos Community Auditorium and other local venues. Events include a free storytelling workshop for kids; a Story Slam hosted by James Navé, one of the pioneers of the spoken word movement; a free Children’s Stories concert; a Story Swap; a workshop on telling stories with origami, and the mainstage Storytelling Festival.

Featured tellers are regional and local tellers Bob Kanegis, Liz Mangual, Sarah Malone, and Francisco “Ciso” Guevara, and internationally acclaimed storyteller Kuniko Yamamoto.

“We’re excited about this year’s line-up and the variety of events we’re offering,” states David Perez, SOMOS Co-Director and organizer of this year’s festival. “Storytelling is a multi-layered art form that crosses all cultures and all ages. A good storyteller can weave you through the spectrum of emotion and create an image that returns months and years later, a line, metaphor, or moral that sticks with us forever.”

A native of Japan, Yamamoto combines traditional dance, music and theater with subtle magic and mystery to her very special form of storytelling. She has performed in venues such as The Kennedy Center (Washington DC), International Children’s Festival in Canada, National Storytelling Festival, and LA Music Center /Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, to name just a few.

Malone began storytelling as a parent volunteer many years ago, believing that children benefit not only from listening to stories but also from their relationship with the storyteller. As current President of Storytellers of New Mexico, she is actively involved in promoting storytelling in her home state and beyond.

Guevara guides white water raft trips on the Rio Grande and regales his adventurous passengers with stories of the wild. A multi-generational New Mexican living in Taos, his stories draw on his Hispanic and Indian heritage and are “outrageous, but true.”

The Story Connection couple Liz Mangual and Bob Kanegis perform, teach and coach people of all ages to find, craft and tell the stories that matter most to them. They travel nationwide, offering school residencies, family storytelling workshops and community building events they call F.E.A.S.T! - Families Eating and Storytelling Together.

For a full schedule, visit http://www.somostaos.org, or contact SOMOS at 575-758-0081 or somos@somostaos.org