With this year's theme Celebration we celebrate 5 years of Storytelling Festival Nijmegen and wonder what else do we have to celebrate? An anniversary, a wedding, freedom, diversity, our health, ourselves or just life? Join us as we journey through three days of celebrations! We will be guided on this journey by storyteller and comedian Soula Notos as our festival host extraordinaire.

20:00 | Opening Night 'A Celebration'!

Tonight we kick of the 5th edition of the Storytelling Festival Nijmegen, introducing a lineup of diverse and refreshing storytellers diving in to all that is cause to celebrate! A grand line up of short celebratory stories by Crystal Hassell, Osama Karkout, Raffi Feghali and Roxana Gavrilut, music by Aymar Torres and hosted by Soula Notos.

Let’s start off by introducing our festival host; Soula Notos is a Dutch-Greek storyteller and comedian, and longtime performing friend of Meneer Otis. She is the organizer and host of the bimonthly Soula's Storytelling Nights at Theater Kikker and a member of the Comedyhuis since it was founded, both located in Utrecht. Many audiences in Europe have encountered this bubbly hugger with her interactive and physical style. Her work focuses on themes of power relations, connection, equality, freedom and lightness.

Crystal Hassell is a theatre maker and storyteller who uses performance to push stories beyond comfort zones. With a background in physical theatre and mime, she creates lecture performances that blend lived experience with wider reflections on racism, feminism, and exclusion. Her shows are marked by humor, vulnerability, and sharp critique. Crystal's storytelling does not aim to soothe, but to stir—asking what happens in the silence before words, or in the weight of emotions that are too often dismissed. She believes that stories hold the power to unsettle, to reimagine, and to open doors to collective transformation.  

With the mind of a physicist and the heart of a refugee, Osama Karkout threads loss and discovery, resilience and curiosity, each drawing out the other, weaving narratives that bridge worlds and spark connection. Osama will shed some light on what drives a wedding crasher…

Raffi Feghali is a theater maker, peacebuilding consultant, and trainer working mostly in Europe, USA, and the Middle East while being based between Amsterdam and Beirut. As a theater maker, he draws on the meeting point of improvisational theater(improv) and storytelling (especially that rooted in the “hakawati” tradition, the ancient Arab art) in order to inspire his performing, writing, directing/devising, radio dramas, sound design, and music making.

Roxana Gavrilut understands the transformative power storytelling brings, and she is dedicated to encouraging and inspiring those in her community to do the same; take ownership of their narratives and turn them into sources of growth. In her stories, Roxana blends playfulness, her cultural Romanian background with its rich experiences, vulnerability, humour, a sense of bravery and innocence. She creates a space where people are invited to reflect on their own stories, celebrate them, and unearth their ''enoughness''.

Aruban artist Aymar Torres is a melting pot of cultures: his father is Aruban/Frisian and his mother is Colombian. Aymar was born and raised in Oranjestad, but left for mainland Netherlands at the age of nineteen. He has a great love for Latin music, especially Brazilian bossa nova. This musical prodigy sings effortlessly in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, and Papiamento. A performance by Aymar is like a journey through the Caribbean and Latin America, with detours to the Mediterranean.