Cristina Temprano: “Institutions and part of the public continue to see oral narration as a minor art”

Tradition and customs could not have lasted if it wern’t because, since times when writing was not even conceived, human beings have transmitted the knowledge we were acquiring, the ways of understanding the world they were developing and the way of seeing the evolution of what surrounded our lives. The director of ‘Palabras al vuelo’, Cristina Temprano, knows it well.

After the achievement of the sixth edition of ‘Palabras al vuelo’, what balance sheet do you make about the festival this year?

We have received a great response from the public in all activities. The comments of the people have been of the style “it seems that it is growing” or “every time it’s better”. I dn’t know if this is so because I’ve always tried to bring narrators with a good level, mixing professionals with people who is starting. It seems that people have especially liked the cast of artists this year. They continue to value the spaces and how the details are taken care of. The public has welcomed us very well; there are regulars who repeat and those regulars are bringing people. We have also received more people from outside who have come from Gran Canaria and Tenerife ex profeso for the festival. The institutions have valued the course of the festival and have given us a lot of support so that we can continue in successive years.

Perhaps, that feeling of consolidation that has been installed in the festival’s public comes from the good organization.

It contributes that from the beginning the struggle was to convey that oral narration is an art that deserves as much recognition as any other. This task costs because on the part of the institutions and on the part of much public it is continued been seen like something smaller. Prejudices can be generated in people who see the publicity and do not consider to go. From the first edition to this, we can say that we have been adding public and also that audience is very diverse. It is wonderful to see that a lot of different audiences have been reached. But we still have to keep working because there are many people on the island who have heard about the festival and are not encouraged to come by those prejudices.

Are these prejudices derived from associating the story with children’s themes?

Yes, this happens a lot. This year we wanted to develop the work of dissemination that telling stories is for all ages. And especially for adults. It is the oldest communication art that exists and also the oldest scenic art. If something characterizes us as human beings, we are narrative beings: we have telled since the language was initiated. It is something intrinsic to the human being. The idea that stories are for children has been implanted in society since the late 1700s and early 1800s when the fable and story began to be used to indoctrinate children. At the same time, all the stories that were telled in the houses, when transferred to the written way, passed throught a filter and were totally sweetened. The adult versions were lost by this, moreover when the implementation of radio and television happened. Now it’s time to dismantle all this so that people consider the narration. Many people believe that narrating is something easy, something minor. It is true that we all have the ability to narrate and that we all tell every day, but to get on a stage you have to have a certain background.

How important is the story in transporting the tradition and values ​​within the various groups?

The societies were structured around a group of myths, which are another form of story. That framework of myths sustained each town and culture. They gave an explanation to the world, to its existence, to the question of where they came from and where they were going. They included the whole set of moral and social values ​​of each society. The stories are at the base of each culture. It is surprising how this profound fact has been overlooked.

In this year’s edition, several of the activities had as their central theme the role of women in the oral tradition. Does ‘Palabras al vuelo’ also its work in the generation of more equal consciences?

In principle it was not something premeditated, but then it was like that. We believe that the conference “The role of women in folk tales” was important for several reasons. It is becoming fashionable to version classic stories transmitting the idea that these stories export a vision of the submissive women. This really is not exactly like that. These stories that society manages come from those literary transformations that have changed the original stories that came orally. Another thing that has been lost is the symbolic interpretation of those stories. I believe that it’s worth getting back to those symbols to make versions. For example, Red Riding Hood symbolizes the discovery of sexuality at puberty by telling girls that their bodies are changing and they are going to meet wolves. That story is not bad, it is not necessary that we change the wolf because that wolf exists in society. The literature was evidently sexist and misogynistic, but I think it is better to dismantle this instead of changing the stories.

Considering that many people consider oral narration as a minor art, how does a storyteller get to the public?

Like all artistic crafts, oral narration has certain difficulties. Society does not value much the work of artists, often you hear that it costs a certain show a lot. For a show to happen there are many hours of work behind. In oral narration it is easier to find children’s audiences than adults, for example. When you want to develop among adults, you have to persevere a lot. Perseverance is another characteristic of any artistic profession, which means that at a given moment you can live off the job. It is a job in which time is key, because it is what allows you to master what you are doing and reach the public. ‘Palabras al vuelo’ wanted from the beginning to support the Canarian narrative that six years ago was totally unknown in the peninsula, even between islands, and today that has changed, the narrators begin to circulate between islands and go increasingly to the peninsula.