Grew Out of the Forest is a 60-minute solo performance that blends live storytelling with looped violin soundscapes, intertwining autobiographical narrative with traditional tales to reveal what is political, personal, and timeless.

Violin and loop station build a shifting emotional landscape — rain on leaves, the rustle of ancient trees, melodic intervals reminiscent of Irish airs. These sounds carry a web of stories moving between the dreamscapes of Irish folklore, pop-cultural memory, and a coming-of-age journey shared by two friends searching for magic.

From fairy gateways to raven wisdom, the tales travel from the cobblestone streets of 1980s Berlin to the moss-covered branches of the Pacific Northwest. At the heart of the work lies Orcas Island in the Salish Sea — a home shaped by resident whales, towering cedars, and encounters with old-growth forests. These landscapes form the emotional roots of the piece: trees whose underground networks hold each other upright, ecosystems marked by resilience and loss, carrying both beauty and colonial history. The tallest trees in the world rise as high as skyscrapers because beneath the surface they hold onto one another. The performance returns to this hidden network as a living question: how do we feel our roots while growing between cultures, parents, and continents?

Drawing from a background in creative writing, Katinka Kraft combines poetic sensitivity to image, rhythm, and sound with the immediacy of oral storytelling to create an intimate, atmospheric world where personal memory, myth, and ecology intertwine. Violin music was composed and performed by Anke Wisch.