The inaugural Berkeley Storytelling Festival sold out every event during its Sept. 18–20, 2026, run at Impossible Stage in downtown Berkeley. Migration, identity, cultural inheritance and belonging featured in its closing program. Diaspora Arts Connection and Third Culture Tales announced the festival’s completion in a release dated Oct. 6.
The three-day program included four events: opening-night production Stories of Berkeley, a personal storytelling workshop, the participatory Berkeley Open Stage and a special closing-night edition of Third Culture Tales. Organizers said future editions would continue to pair curated performances with workshops, open participation, music and cross-cultural storytelling. They want to keep events intimate, accessible and rooted in the community. Plans for the next festival will come later.
Stories from Berkeley and beyond
The Sept. 18 Stories of Berkeley program focused on people, experiences, histories and perspectives shaping the city. Performers included award-winning storyteller, humorist and human-rights activist Max Houghton; Human Rights Activist and Writer Anirvan Chaterjee; Berkeley-raised writer, documentary filmmaker and stunt performer Kelly Richardson; musician, singer, oud player and yoga instructor Sara Saberi; Diaspora Arts Connection Founder and human rights activist Nazy Kaviani; and business leader and arts supporter Payman Najafpour. Storyteller and festival organizer Shayan Ravandoust hosted.
Shayan Ravandoust, founder of Third Culture Tales, led Saturday’s sold-out workshop, with Kavian Ravandoust, a licensed therapist, writer and storyteller, as co-facilitator. They helped participants shape lived experiences into narratives through character, scene, detail, tension, reflection and performance. Many had no prior writing or performance experience. By the workshop’s end, participants had developed and shared stories in a supportive setting.
That evening, the Berkeley Open Stage welcomed experienced performers and first-time participants to share five-minute true stories. There was no judging: the noncompetitive event aimed to make storytelling accessible beyond professional artists. Iranian American singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator and Persian setâr virtuoso Fared Shafinury appeared as special musical guest.
Migration, identity and belonging
The festival closed Sunday, Sept. 20, with a sold-out special edition of Third Culture Tales, a live storytelling platform devoted to migration, identity, cultural inheritance, belonging and life between worlds. Its storytellers were interdisciplinary Iranian American artist Shirin Towfiq, whose work explores migration, family history, cultural memory and belonging; UC Berkeley alumna Nasrin Murad; artist, writer, musician and four-time Moth StorySLAM winner Eva Schlesinger; master musician, composer and ney player Mohammad Khodadadi; and Stanford lecturer, award-winning educator, Moth GrandSLAM finalist and First Person Story founder Harriett "Dr. J" Jernigan.
Third Culture Tales alum Vivek Venugopal hosted. A Bay Area storyteller, improviser, performer and facilitator, he draws on a life across Zambia, India and the United States in his approach to storytelling and human connection. The evening’s stories explored migration, displacement, family, tradition, reinvention, humor and the search for home.
"The response to this first festival exceeded what we imagined," Shayan Ravandoust said. Audiences listened generously, storytellers took creative and emotional risks, and attendees stayed afterward to talk with one another, he said. Kaviani said the sold-out response showed people were seeking spaces to meet beyond headlines, labels and assumptions.
Diaspora Arts Connection is a Bay Area nonprofit supporting artists, preserving cultural heritage and creating opportunities for dialogue across cultures. The release said the organization has presented more than 500 events, supported more than 2,200 artists and welcomed more than 30,000 audience members. The page identified the announcement as paid-service content distributed by XPR Media and said USA TODAY Network editorial and news staff didn’t create it. It also said EIN Presswire provided the content as is, without warranties, and that XPRMedia and the site made no warranties or representations about information from the independent third-party provider.