Orcas Island Storytelling Festival Coming Soon

July 23 – July 29 at various venues

Once again the summer Orcas Storyfest brings Eth-Noh-Tec’s Nancy Wang and Robert  Kikuchi-Yngojo and their lively cohorts to the island next week.

The line-up this year includes:

• Bill Harley, Grammy award winning and very funny storyteller from Massachusettes;
• Erica Lann-Clark, Jewish American and very funny storyteller from California;
• A special presentation by Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor on the Filipino Indigenous peoples of Mindanao with Kulintang bronze gong ensemble music by Eth-Noh-Tec;
• Antoinette Botsford, Metis-French Canadian storyteller from Orcas;
• Guest artists Anji Rinzin, recitations of Rumi; Fred Klein, poetry readings; and Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz leading us with songs.

This is Eth-Noh-Tec’s seventh storytelling festival gifted to the peoples of Orcas Island with sponsorship from the Friends of the Orcas Library and private donors. With the added generosity of farmers, restaurants, pilots, Shearwater Kayaking, Island Market, museums, neighbors, and the cooking skills of friends, Eth-Noh-Tec is able to produce the festival every other year.

The Orcas StoryFest schedule for 2017:

• Sunday July 23: ‘Forest Welcome Potluck & Performance’ ~ For volunteers, donors, neighbors and special guests 5pm at 491 Discovery Way forest in the Highlands;

• Monday July 24: ‘Mirth of Mindanao,’ stories and music of Mindanao, Philippines 8pm at Oddfellows Hall 112 Haven Rd., Donation at door;

• Tuesday July 25: ‘Pajama Tales’, family stories 6:30 pm at Orcas Library 500 Rose St. Come in pajamas! Free;

• Wednesday July 26: ‘Wisdom & Wit,, 1:30 pm at Orcas Senior Center 62 Henry Rd., Free;

• Wednesday July 26: ‘In the Spirit of Sacred Stories,’ 8 pm at Odd Fellows Hall 112 Haven Rd., Donation at door;

• Thursday July 27: ‘World of Stories,’ 8 pm at Emmanuel Parish Hall 218 Main St., Donation at door.

In addition, Nancy is again teaching storytelling at the Senior Center and students will also be performing in the festival.

Eth-Noh-Tec is an award-winning Asian American nonprofit storytelling theater co-founded by Nancy Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo, longstanding San Francisco artists who have contributed greatly to the Asian American performing arts movement. Both Robert and Nancy, who have trained and performed in traditional and contemporary art forms for over two decades. They have enjoyed tremendous success in this focused fusion, meeting the goals of their name Eth-Noh-Tec: The weaving [tec] together of distinctive cultural elements of the East and West [eth] to create new possibilities [noh].

Eth-Noh-Tec has performed around the world with their award winning storytelling in schools, libraries, festivals, conferences, museums, colleges, universities and theaters. In fact it was the Orcas Center that hired them to perform two years in a row in 1999 and 2000. Nancy and Robert fell in love with Orcas and in 2003 purchased their home in the Highlands. As part-timers here and the rest of the year in San Francisco, it’s a tough choice to say which is better. They say Orcas is an ‘ahhh’ and San Francisco is a ‘yum’ with its overabundance of restaurants and diverse communities from every country!

Eth-Noh-Tec’s recent projects have included the children’s storybook A New Pair of Wings which chronicles the true story of a young girl named Dolores, who overcomes racism in her kindergarten classroom after she immigrants to America from the Philippines; as well as the play 10,000 Steps.

There’s a lot to do to produce any festival, and Robert wants to invite anyone to come help us set up, cook, and clean any time before, during and after the festival. To volunteer or contribute in any way, please call Robert at 360-376-8705 or write: Contact@ethnohtec.org.