Detroit Cantastoria Fest
Thanks to all who performed, helped create and came to see the Detroit Cantastoria Festival 2025!
November 21-23!
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church 1950 Trumbull Ave, Detroit
Friday, Saturday Sunday, 7:30 Doors 8pm show
$10-20 sliding scale tickets available at the door
Detroit Cantastoria Festival 2025 is a cavalcade of beautiful, thought provoking and wildly entertaining short shows in the “cantastoria” and “cranky” tradition. Mostly local artists with some superstars from afar. Doors at 7:30! first come first served admission/seating until we are full. Live Music! Refreshments
Read our recent review from the Metro Times:
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Detroit Cantastoria Fest is an annual festival featuring local artists and activists who collaborate on a group of short shows in the “cantastoria” and “cranky” traditions. Cantastoria and cranky shows are a wonderful medium for storytelling. These art forms are thousands of years old and still alive today in Detroit! Join us and tell your story!
“Cantastoria” is the Italian word for an ancient form of street theater involving a narrator singing or telling a story while gesturing to elaborate painted banners or scrolls. “Cranky” shows are a similar form using a painted scroll which is displayed using a “crank.”
The Detroit Cantastoria Fest comes to life through a series of free workshops hosted by members of Flying Cardboard Theatre. Workshops are for participants who want to learn about this ancient art form and participate in making or performing cantastoria and cranky shows.
After working together to build shows, we create a beautiful, raucous and thought provoking weekend of performances featuring a diverse group of new and classic cantastoria and cranky pieces. Flying Cardboard Theater and other artists from the Cantastoria Festival perform work throughout the year. Contact us if you would like a cantastoria show at your event.
More about Cantastoria
“Cantastoria is a precursor to modern puppet theater, this practice originated in 6th Century India and spread East and West, with many different variations in style and subject matter. Recently there has been a revival of interest in Cantastoria among puppeteers, artists, and activists in the West, who find that this ancient form has startlingly modern qualities and can easily be infused with fresh content. The use of the cranky-a sister to the cantastoria-has also lately grown popular among folk musicians and artists looking for new ways to perform their songs and display their artwork in a performance context. This is a living and breathing folk performance practice that has its own particular place alongside the technology and media of the 21st century.”
–This information was written by Clare Dolan, a historian and practitioner of cantastoria and cranky shows from Vermont. Clare Dolan and Dave Buchen organize “Banners and Cranks,” a festival of cranky and cantastoria shows that was a gateway into the artform for many artists (including us!)
More information on the Banners and Cranks festival and Cantastoria art form: banners-cranks.org
