Waialua Library Reaches Out To Brazil For Tales Of Adventure

Antonio Rocha

Waialua Library gets to showcase the talents of acclaimed Brazilian storyteller Antonio Rocha next month in a special Summer Reading Program show, “Jungle Tales.”

It’s a collection of animal stories with an ecological theme and “a myriad of fantastic sound effects that will not only entertain but also educate.”

A free performance is planned for 10 a.m. July 7 at the Waialua branch, as well as at four other Oahu libraries that week.

Rocha is an award-winning mime, actor and storyteller in Brazil, but he also earned the Parents’

Choice Gold Award for his Under African Skies DVD. To hone his mime talents, he studied under the late Tony Montanaro and Marcel Marceau.

“Mime and storytelling have suffered greatly in the past century with the onslaught of the TV, movies and other passive technological ways of gaining information,” he shares on his website. “I feel that people in general have grown less able to access their creativity because everything is done for them.”

Rocha is trying to make up for that. During the past 25-plus years, he has taken his colorful stories around the globe – from Singapore to Austria. Two weeks ago, he was at a storytelling festival in Sweden.

For more information, call 637-8286.