Jungle Tales To Come Alive At Local Libraries

Antonio Rocha, an internationally acclaimed storyteller, mime and actor from Brazil, is a featured performer in the Children’s Summer Reading Program at 17 libraries statewide, including Kaneohe at 3 p.m. July 1 and Kailua at 6 p.m. July 3. Photo from the Statewide Cultural Extension Program

Windward libraries will share 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.”

Free performances are planned at 3 p.m. July 1 at Kaneohe Library and 6 p.m. July 3 at Kailua Library.

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. Over the past 25-plus years, he’s taken his colorful stories around the globe – from Singapore to Austria. Just last week, he was at a storytelling festival in Sweden.

For more information, call 233-5676 (Kaneohe) or 266-9911 (Kailua).