Since fourteen years now the Landcommanderij Alden Biesen is the scenery for an international storytelling festival. Story tellers from many countries bring stories for young and old and they all tell in their mother tongue.

The Alden Biesen storytelling festival lasts 9 days. During the week the programme is oriented towards students and adult learners. About 100 schools send 12.000 pupils and students to the festival. For youngsters the stories are in Dutch but from 16+ on one can choose between Dutch, English, French and German, the 4 languages Flemish schools have in their curriculum.

During the weekend the festival has a programme for families and adults with story walks, multilingual story telling evenings, aperitif sessions and a Sunday afternoon festival including street theatre and music.

The 2009 festival with 38 story tellers, 215 hours of story telling and 19.500 tickets turns the Alden Biesen festival into one of the largest storytelling festivals in Europe.

Dates 2010: 19 – 27 April

More info:
Programme and coordination: guy.tilkin@alden-biesen.be
School programme:katrijn.beelen@cjsm.vlaanderen.be
Weekend programme: constance.neven@cjsm.vlaanderen.be
Programme adult education: karin.vandamme@cjsm.vlaanderen.be

In the programme we opt for story telling and simple ‘storytelling theatre’, no ‘special effects’ but an appeal to one’s fantasy and imagination.

Students from higher education also attend the festival: groups from the foreign language and teacher training departments.

Recently the festival also runs a programme for adult education (evening classes foreign languages). We offer native speakers for the German, French, English, Spanish, Potuguese and Italian classes and a Flemish storyteller for immigrant groups who learn Dutch as a foreign language. 1.550 adults took part in these sessions in 2009.