Voice of the Fire

For the fourth episode of Voice of the Fire we interview the German storyteller Uschi Erlewein.

Uschi is a strong willed, irreverent and independent storyteller for whom authenticity and personal expression are paramount. She calls herself someone who plays with stories - they are her instrument. In her world things sometimes stand upside down before they can stand on their feet. Stories don't need a moral, all the rules need to be broken before you can properly understand them. Her stories, like herself, travel the globe - from Mongolia to the South Sea back to her native Swabia.

You can find out more about Uschi Erlewein at her extensive and highly informative website http://www.uschi-erlewein.de/ (German only)

Once more we gaze into the embers of the fire for an Indian story. This one is a Tamil story and shows that in Indian folklore the wish to escape one's fate is at least as strong as it is in Western tales.

Welcome to Whispers of the Fire - where we talk about random themes related to writing, storytelling and what shapes a story...or indeed our own reality.

Follow me into a slight rant on an old theme: reality vs imagination. Let's find out why those two are not opposites but work hand in hand.

In the third episode of Voice of the Fire we talk to two documentary filmmakers from South India, Anushka Meenakshi and Iswar Srikumar, who have been working on the Uramili project for several years.

In long journeys through their home-country they have documented, filmed and recorded hundreds of songs - work songs, death songs, protest songs, laments, songs of joy etc. - that are found in different regions of India.

We know of the tradition that songs had in Western art and storytelling, but we know very little of the (still living) traditions of song in India. Uramili aims to change that.

You can see a trailer for their most recent documentary Up, Down and Sideways, which has screened at film festivals all over the world and received several awards here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJsCbJfICoY

Their website, in case you want to contact or support them, is here: www.uramili.in

You can also find them on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uramili/

Embers is an intermittent story. This could be anything, but mostly it focuses on the (bi)weekly theme of Voice of the Fire.

This week it is India. Untold Stories is a tale of and about the Gond, an Adivasi tribe in Central India.

If you are curious about the Gond, especially their folk art, pay this site a visit: https://www.deccanfootprints.com/collections/gond-art

In this episode of Whispers of the Fire we ask a simple question: Why do so many fairy tales talk about princes and princesses?

Warning: Dark themes (contains language, as Neil Gaiman is wont to warn, not strong but hopefully effective)

Illustration by Nadezhda Illarionova - https://www.artstation.com/nillarionova

Whispers of the Fire are little side-notes to the episodes of Voice of the Fire. They are room to play and wonder about certain themes and topics concerning storytelling.

Here I talk about the traditional role of the storyteller and how he fits into society. Are traditional tellers really disappearing?

Voice of the Fire is written and produced by Sebastian Buchner.

In this episode of Voice of the Fire we take a look at contemporary storytelling in Morocco and talk to the Moroccan storyteller Mehdi El Ghaly about his drive, his stories and his life in a changing society.

Traditional storytelling in Morocco is not dead, neither is it dying. It lives on in people who speak and adapt, who turn stories of djinn and queens into modern fables about people, about power and intelligence.

Mehdi El Ghaly:

The Tribe of Ten (TedX Marrakech) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pjFuLo4U3I

https://mehdielghaly.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thestorytellermehdielghaly/

https://www.instagram.com/mehdielghaly/

Al Halqa - a film by Thomas Ladenburger http://www.alhalqa.com/index.php/en/expo.html

The Last Storytellers by Richard Hamilton http://www.richard-hamilton.com/the-last-storytellers/

In this first episode of the storytelling podcast Voice of the Fire join me to say farewell to one of the greatest writers of our time, Ursula K. LeGuin, who passed away in January 2018. We will enter the complex philosophical world of LeGuin with a reading of "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

Voice of the Fire is produced by Sebastian Buchner (www.sebasbuchner.com)

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" belongs to the estate of Ursula K. LeGuin

Music by Rahi Sinaki