PVFS News: Award-winning Storyteller Motoko will join the September 5 Song & Story Swap
Jeff Lee
http://www.filbert.com/pvfs/news/current.htm
Pioneer Valley Folklore Society Happenings -- September 2009
Contents
. Storyteller Motoko will join the September 5 Song & Story Swap
. Two September shows - Bread & Puppet, Tom Juravich
. Agawam Celtic series
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Storyteller Motoko will be featured at Sept. 5 Song & Story Swap
Please come share in an evening of music and stories at the Pioneer Valley
Folklore Society Song & Story Swap.
Saturday, September 5 , 7:00-9:30 p.m. at the The Nacul Center, 592 Main
St., Amherst, Mass (see map).
Guest performer at the September 5 Song & Story Swap will be award-winning
storyteller Motoko.
Motoko enchants audiences of every age with her weaving of ancient lore,
original tales, lyrical movement and traditional music. Her repertoire
includes Asian folktales, Zen tales, comical tales from rakugo (a Japanese
traditional style of storytelling), funny mime vignettes, as well as
personal stories from her childhood in Japan and her life as an immigrant in
the U.S.
A native of Osaka, Japan, Motoko has been telling stories professionally
since 1993. She came to the U.S. as an exchange student to the University
of Massachusetts and early in her career trained with late master mime Tony
Montanaro. She credits her partner Eshu Bumpus with introducing her to the
world of American storytelling.
Motoko has appeared on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and has been featured in an
educational video by Harcourt. Her debut CD, The Promise of Chrysanthemums
won a 2002 Parents' Choice Silver Honor Award and a 2003 Storytelling World
Award. Motoko has been showcased on the Exchange Place Stage at the National
Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, representing the Northeast
region. and has toured Miyazaki, Japan, as a part of CarnegieKids in
Miyazaki Project, sponsored by Carnegie Hall.
More about Motoko can be found at her web site,
http://www.motoko.folktales.net/.
The warm-up theme this month is Houses.
The Song & Story Swap is open to the public, free of charge with donations
accepted. People of all ages gather to share stories and songs that are
traditional, newly written, or of personal experiences. You can tell, sing,
or lead everyone in singing, or request a song or story. Listeners are
welcome.
For information contact Paul Kaplan, (413)-687-5002 or Jeff Lee,
(413)-256-0433 or visit http://www.filbert.com/pvfs.