Celebrate our common humanity and the unique beauty of diverse experiences during this 6 week international community festival. 27 individuals from Baltimore to Bengaluru share their personal and cultural stories about life in quarantine, racism, relationships, social justice, empowerment, persistence, mortality, immigration, identity, courage, loneliness, and sustainable living through narrative, music, art, animation/video/short film, and more. See the schedule and learn more about the storytellers and their stories below.

If you require captioning during the event, please submit your request to [email protected] at least 48 hours before the event.

• Renu Naryan (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Nonnie’s Big Adventure”
• Pretigaya Haran (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Naarangi Bai, The Brave Teenager”
• Sonia Bareja Punhani (Delhi, India) “The Story of Selfless Love-Mirabai”
• Priyanka Chatterjee (Kolkata, India) “A Story and a Song”

Renu Naryan (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Nonnie’s Big Adventure”
Renu Narayan will tell a story that addresses plastic waste. Renu Naryan is a professional storyteller from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, who has performed for children and adults. She established her own storytelling brand called KathaVriksh in September 2018. Renu narrates a variety of stories, including those she researches and those she creates herself.

Pretigaya Haran (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) “Naarangi Bai, the Brave Teenager”
Pretigaya Haran relays the story is a real life incident of how a teenage girl (her grandmother) courageously faced four thieves on her own. Pretigaya Haran has been telling stories to kids and adults for over five years now. She previously worked with Helen O’Grady and her drama academy as a trainer. Pretigaya also conducts training programs for teachers, workshops with parents on reading to children, and public speaking workshops for teens.

Sonia Bareja Punhani (Delhi, India) “The Story of Selfless Love-Mirabai”
Sonia Bareha Punhani will tell the story of the disappearance of Mirabai, a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet, devotee of Lord Krishna, and celebrated Bhakti saint. Sonia Bareja is an incisive professional with 20 years of varied experience as an Entrepreneur, Educator cum Counsellor, Story Teller, Wellness coach and mentor, and Sales and Marketing professional. She started with corporate storytelling primarily. Alongside, she also conducted sessions on Sexuality and Wellness in schools and, ever since she has been conducting performance-based storytelling across schools, colleges, festivals. She regularly incorporates music and poetry into her stories and is often praised for her strong voice throw, modulation, and narration.

Priyanka Chatterjee (Kolkata, India) “A Story and a Song”
“A story and a song” is an Indian folktale that revolves around the theme of what happens when you suppress a story inside you for a long, long time…a suppressed story can chase, bite and haunt you…it can cause distress to you and to others around you! Everyone has a story to tell. But are we sharing our stories? Are we listening to other people’s stories?

Priyanka Chatterjee aka ‘Golpodidi’ is an International Story Consultant, an MBA (Gold Medalist), an alumna of International Institute of Storytelling, Emerson College, UK. She’s the Director, Storytelling Education and Arts India Council (SEAIC) and Founder Director, Wild Strawberry. She spent a long tenure in Fortune 500 MNCs and leading Indian Media House; but later passion made her leave the comfort and security of the ‘known’ and jump into the unknown. She established ‘Wild Strawberry,’ an Art Exploration company where Storytelling and Drama are used as mediums of exploration of self, others, and the world around.