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Sonia Gardes

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Contact: [email protected]
Local authority: Glasgow City
Languages: English
Sonia  Gardes's headshot

Sònia Gardés is a storyteller, puppeteer and theatre maker from Barcelona based in Glasgow. In her career she has worked with young audiences, from babies to teenagers, as well as with adults. Her stories are interactive and in them she often makes use of her many skills, such as puppetry, physicality, music and teaching languages like Spanish and Catalan.

Sònia is a chameleonic storyteller who loves tailoring events exploring folk tales, contemporary writers and personal narratives. She is passionate about stories that reflect on environmentalism, the community, feminism and the celebration of diversity. 

In her career as a storyteller, Sònia has worked with many local communities and organisations, like the Wee Spanish Mobile Library, The Hidden Gardens, the Swap Market, the Forestry Commission, Playbase and Glasgow Women’s Library, and she has also performed internationally in Scotland, England, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Recent work includes the development of What I Know (about what my Grandfather didn’t know), presenting Sònia’s research on her exiled Great-Grandfather and the intergenerational trauma that the family has carried since the Spanish Civil War. Acclaimed by audiences, and with a four stars review by The Herald, the show has been performed in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Amsterdam.

(Photo credit: Jassy Earl)

Local authorities will visit

Edinburgh City; Falkirk; Glasgow City; Stirling

Events will deliver

Bilingual event; Live drawing; Multilingual event; Performance; Reading; Residency; Talk; Workshop

Audience will work with

Adult learners; Care-experienced people; People experiencing mental health problems; Vulnerable young people (under 18); Vulnerable adults; Young people in the community (e.g. Youth clubs, Guides, Scouts)

Topics of work

Activism & protest; Adolescence; Adventure; Animals; Biography & memoir; Childhood; Class & society; Coasts, seas & oceans; Comedy, humour & funny books; Contemporary fiction; Death, grief & bereavement; Discrimination & prejudice; Editing & editing your own work; Emigration & immigration; Environment & climate; Fairy tales, folklore & mythology; Family; First experiences for younger readers; Food; Friendship; Gender equality; Health including mental health & wellbeing; History; Horror; Loneliness & isolation; Mystery & thriller; Nature; Performance training; Picture books; Politics; Poverty; Rhyming books for younger readers; Rural communities; Science; Science fiction; Seasonal books; Self-publishing & independent publishing; Translation; Urban communities; Vehicles; Violence & abuse

Age groups published for

Children; Teens; Adults

Age groups will work with

0-2; 3-5; 6-8; 9-11; 12-14; 15-18; 18+

Audience size

0-10; 11-30; 31-100; 100-500