ImPuls der Kultur – Frankreich

“We walked for ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, and when we turned around, the path was no longer than a grain of wheat.” 

Odile Néri-Kaiser invites you on a journey through her life as a storyteller in France, Germany, and Senegal. 

With tradition as her compass, memories and experience as her sustenance, and humor and tenderness as her seasoning, she sets course for human encounters as if they were unknown continents waiting to be discovered!   

Odile Néri-Kaiser was a teacher at at-risk middle schools in the suburbs of Lyon before moving to Germany with her family. This experience shaped and defined her ongoing commitment to oral storytelling. In Stuttgart, she led the storytelling workshop within the family education program of the Youth Welfare Office for 15 years and founded the association Ars Narrandi e.V., which receives institutional support from the city. Through her enthusiastic encounter with the books of the Malian anthropologist Amadou Hampâthè Bâ, her lively exchanges with the storyteller Abou Fall, and stays in Senegal, she is currently deepening her understanding of West African oral storytelling culture.

The “ImPuls der Kultur und Kulturen” series:
Other countries and art forms become part of the stories. On the one hand, storytellers present their respective countries through traditional storytelling traditions and their own life stories. On the other hand, the art of storytelling invites musicians, dancers, mimes, and actors to join in.