Raphael Rodan i.s.m. Amsterdam Storytelling Festival

Vertel!: The Donkey’s Jaw

Specials & festivals, Language no problem, Theater
Alborz Sahebdivani
The Donkey’s Jaw
Raphael Rodan i.s.m. Amsterdam Storytelling Festival

Vertel!: The Donkey’s Jaw

Specials & festivals, Language no problem, Theater
Alborz Sahebdivani
The Donkey’s Jaw
Raphael Rodan i.s.m. Amsterdam Storytelling Festival

Vertel!: The Donkey’s Jaw

Specials & festivals, Language no problem, Theater
Alborz Sahebdivani
The Donkey’s Jaw
Raphael Rodan i.s.m. Amsterdam Storytelling Festival

Vertel!: The Donkey’s Jaw

Specials & festivals, Language no problem, Theater
Alborz Sahebdivani
The Donkey’s Jaw

“I remember myself walking through the streets of Jerusalem,
touching ancient rocks and imagining my blood transforming into the
blood of kings, a crown growing on my head. I didn’t know what was
real and what wasn’t anymore”

“What kind of stories did you grow up with?” Raphael Rodan asks the audience and casually adds with a wink “for me, these were stories where God is the bad guy and women have no place but as a rib covering a man’s lungs, the notorious stories of the Old Testament.”
 

In The Donkey’s Jaw, a storytelling show with live music, Raphael strips ancient myths like Cain and Abel, Samson and Delilah and King Saul of their religious connotations and revives them with the light of his own personal life experiences growing up in modern Israel. While gracefully shifting from salty humor to moments with great depth, he uses the stories to reflect together with the audience about universal topics that are as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago.

“I couldn’t help but see how these stories repeat themselves, old stories camouflaged in new costumes… just like the forbidden fruit of knowledge from the garden of Eden that is sitting in the middle of your iPhone.” As outrageous as these stories may sound to our modern ears, is there hidden wisdom to be found in them?

The storytelling is accompanied by the angelic singing of singer-songwriter Erik Sjøholm, all with a hint of Leonard Cohen in the air.
 

Performed by - Raphael Rodan and Erik Sjøholm Directed by - Titus Tiel Groenestege Written by - Raphael Rodan Additional writer - Sahand Sahebdivani
Music by - Erik Sjøholm

About Raphael Rodan

Raphael Rodan is an award-winning theatre maker and storyteller. He works on both ancient and personal stories and examines the connection between them. Together with Sahand Sahebdivani, he had created a few hit storytelling shows like My Father Held a Gun, the winner of Amsterdam Fringe Festival 2017.  Raphael played in theatres and festivals all over Europe and, by doing so, gained international recognition. Raphael also teaches and is the cofounder of the Mezrab Storytelling School.

About Erik Sjøholm

Erik Sjøholm is an eclectic singer-songwriter & storyteller from Ostrobothnia, Finland. Singing in both Swedish, English and Spanish, his voice has been compared to artists like Ed Sheeran, Paul Simon and Jeff Buckley. In 2016 he published his debut album “Walkabout” featuring his hit song “Ray of light”. As a storyteller, Sjøholm draws on experiences from a nomadic life, finding his inspiration in the people that he meets along the road. With his acoustic nylon stringed guitar, stories and songs, he plays the universal strings and narratives that makes every human heart resonate and sing along.

The Amsterdam Storytelling Festival about masks

For this edition of storytelling festival Vertel!, Theater Kikker and The Amsterdam Storytelling Festival collaborate. Sahand Sahebdivani en Raphael Rodan, creative directors of The Amsterdam Storytelling Festival, selected three performances with the theme: Masks. They also organise an inspiring talk about the role and effect of storytelling and a workshop True Storytelling, about how to turn a memory into a story. Do you dare to show your real face?