It's the stuff of childhood - sitting in a circle, listening to fairytales. But anyone who thinks storytelling is a dying art should think again because Amsterdam has just played host to an international festival featuring wordsmiths from all over the world.

At the festival, Dutch storyteller Stan Fritschy read Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes to a group of grinning adults. Written in the 1980s, the poems are amusing versions of well-known fairytales like Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood. They are known and loved by children, but Fritschy says they appeal to everyone.
 
"Storytelling is getting bigger in Holland but also other countries in Europe. This festival is an example. In schools, children are learning the art of telling so it's growing and growing."
 
Artists from India, the UK and the US as well as a host of Dutch talent were invited to this second edition of the Dutch international storytelling festival. All of the events were held on board boats. The festival's organisers chose this unique setting because it provides intimacy and because seafaring has traditionally been linked with the telling of stories.
 
Personal connection
Although the theme of this year's event was the stars and the sky, the storytellers covered a wide range of themes in their performances, often drawing on their own experiences. British storyteller Peter Chand's work focuses on his Indian heritage and he often breaks into Punjabi, punctuating his pieces with song and dance. He says to be good, you have to have a connection to the story you are telling.
 
"I think it's someone who engages you and believes in the story, makes you see what they can see. It's important to tell a story that means something to you, far too many people tell stories that they think are nice or exciting or colourful, but the best ones are the ones that have some deep resonance with you. My family comes from India so I tell a lot of stories from that neck of the woods using the language. The places I've visited also come into the story."
 
Renaissance
None of the people visiting the festival seem concerned that storytelling might die out as technology advances. To the contrary, they say it is an art form that's becoming more popular with children as well as adults. As society changes, so do the stories that become important to a particular generation. We adapt age-old stories to suit a particular time or place, says Peter Chand.
 
"Storytelling changes form... it's changing into different mediums but stories will never go. Every day you hear stories, when people are sitting on the bus they hear stories, when kids come home from school and they tell what the other kids have done to them that's a story."
 
There's been a renaissance of storytelling for the past 20 years, and Peter Chand believes it's an art that will always exist in one form or another. This, he says, is why the same stories are still being told thousands of years later. If they didn't resonate for each progressive generation, they would have died out years ago.