Barcelona to host new storytelling event: 'It is like telling a story to friends at dinner, just on stage'

Ten different narrators take the stage. And for up to ten minutes, everyone carefully listens to their personal lives and anecdotes, bringing them closer to the audience. Friends Liz Melchor and Cristian Figueroa are taking their Storytelling adventure from Portugal to Barcelona.

After their success, event organizers decided to start expanding to the Catalan capital. "This is the first country and city outside Lisbon where this event is happening as a branch of Storytelling Lisboa," Figueroa told Catalan News.

The decision was mainly driven by the fact that many people who had attended the event in Portugal had been "asking to bring it" to Barcelona.

The first event, held at El Noa Noa restaurant in Eixample, is expected to attract a "cozy" but "super wide-ranging" audience of around 50 people.

"We talk about the human experience, so we have all sorts of ages, we have a lot of queer people," Figueroa told this media outlet. "Everyone is welcome."

The free and open event welcomes walk-ins, especially for those "first-time attendees," with the only goal of explaining "personal and truthful stories, told not read, and with no hate speech." "You do not need to pay to be part of the audience or you can be part of the storytellers," Figueroa said.

The idea is for people to "unplug from their phones for a couple of hours" and to connect with other attendees and narrators on different monthly topics. For their first edition, organizers have proposed for storytellers to focus on 'First Times.'

"Every time we go on stage, we tell people, this is like you're telling a story with your friends at dinner, just on stage," Figueroa added. He has been one of the co-founders of this non-profit event since it started in December 2019.

Storytelling Barcelona will be a twice-monthly gathering, following Lisbon's format, with an English-language night and a Catalan or Spanish-language night each month.

The project's essence has been "always to bring the local language into the event, and that's why we have this little arm of the Catalan or Spanish one," Figueroa said. To do so, he is "in the process of learning" the language, and organizers are "trying to recruit local people to collaborate."

While Barcelona and Lisbon are different cities, organizers expect to "build something just as meaningful" as what they have built, which has become one of the "most beloved community events."

Storytelling Barcelona follows the idea behind New York's The Moth, where a group of strangers bring their personal stories to a large audience. It is a bit like the current viral trend, 'We listen, we don't judge,' but in real life.

To join the event, storytellers need to fill a form. For those wishing to attend as public, walk-ins are encouraged.