Storytelling in the City!

This coming Saturday marks Snail Tales' 2nd birthday. But it is also Cambridge's Summer in the City festival - so we'll be celebrating on the city's central park, Parker's Piece!

Expect to see storytelling taking a predominant role in the Children's Festival, which takes over the Performance Marquee on Saturday 11th July.

There will be plenty to see and do, including an open-access Snail Tales workshop at 12pm for all the family to give storytelling a go!

Then, at 1pm, you can see a free sneak preview of our upcoming theatre tour, A Little Bird Told Me. We've taken the best stories told to us by children throughout East Anglia during our Little Birds project, and added puppets, music and magic to turn them into one of the most exciting and original productions you'll see this year!

Just when you're thinking that might be enough, the best is yet to come. 'Cause from 1:30pm onwards, you'll be able to see firsthand the stories from some of the Little Birds in Cambridge's own primary schools.

Thanks to funding from the John Lewis Partnership, Cambridge City Council were able to support three local primaries give almost all their children the experience of a Little Birds workshop series. Children from years 2 to 5 will present an incredible cast of characters - ninjas, T-rexs, witches, earthworms and more - in their very own imagined cunning plots.

The stories will be told in whatever way the children thought best - some will be storytelling, while others will be presenting their drawings, puppet shows, plays, written work, or even board games.

Even after Snail Tales and our new young storytelling pals have left, the storytelling fun will still continue with our good friend John Row providing storytelling on walkabout. There's also plenty of other activities, from things to watch (Indian dancing, drummers from Southern Ghana) to things to do (face painting, ukulele workshops).

So we look forward to seeing as many of you at the Children's Festival as possible. It will be magical!

For more information on the Children's Festival itself, click here.

2009-07-05