Critical Acclaim
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1.24.05 The Antelope, University of Nebraska at
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Rage Is Not A 1-Day Thing!
reviewed in Stage Of the
Art, Winter, 2002 Journal
American Alliance For Theatre & Education www.aate.com
480-965-6064
"When first meeting Awele I was
immediately impressed by her beauty and elegance. Seeing her performance
confirmed that Awele is a deep well of talent and inspiration. Awele is an
outstanding artist."
Michael Keck, Voices in the Rain: The Struggle for Survival and Hope
“Awele Makeba is an actress/storyteller who
will restore your faith in the power of theatre for young audiences. And
even if your faith doesn’t need restoring, she will inspire you and help you
to remember how powerful theatre, for young or old, can truly be. Awele is
the most stirring performer that I have seen in years, and her one-woman show, Rage
is Not a 1-Day Thing! is a captivating, fascinating, work of art."
Karen Libman, Editor, STAGE of the Art, Volume 14, Number 2 www.aate.com
"Awele's captivating stories and her
animated and expressive style transported the audience to another time and place
altogether. In Awele's world, the old can become young again and the young can see with
the eyes of wisdom. It was a magical evening."
Nancy Sausser, Acting Director, Arts/Harmony Hall Regional Center
"Your passion for storytelling is infectious and your style is engaging, exciting,
and inspiring."
Ellen Westkaemper, Vice President of Education and Outreach,
Peace Center For The Performing Arts
"Awele Makeba is a very engaging storyteller who can adapt her stories for any age
group. Audiences responded extremely well to her and she was delightful to work
with."
Kim Peter Kovac, Senior Program Director, Youth & Family Programs, The Kennedy
Center
"As we had all anticipated, your vibrant expressions, your commitment, your
education, your training, your grace, your style and your connection to a past about which
few of our students were aware all had the most tremendous impact on both adults and
children alike."
Tamsin, Miller, Series Producer, Whistler, BC Community Arts Council
"...But Oakland storyteller Awele Makeba captivated
everyone, adults and children alike with her gifts as storyteller, entertainer, animal
impersonator, singer and acrobat...Her talent seemed endless...Makeba set up a hunger for
stories..."
Patricia Holt, Book Editor
San Francisco Chronicle
"Awele Makeba does not tell a tale. She evokes it
with words and gestures. Using her sing-song voice and fluid, dance-like movements, Makeba
transports listeners to other worlds populated by nosy possums and denture-wearing
preachers...snakes hiss seductively, basketballs bound across the floor and the smell of
warm peach cobbler instantly fills the room."
San Ramon Valley Times
San Ramon Valley , CA
"Awele Makeba is what storytelling is all
about...Makeba knows how to bring a story to life. Watching her perform on stage is
tantamount to watching a song in motion."
Champion-Georgia Perimeter College
Atlanta, Georgia
"When Awele Makeba tells a story, she uses more than
her words, facial expressions and body movements. She is also speaking in the voice of her
ancestors, bringing tales to life."
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA
"She has everybody laughing and hanging on her every
word all the way to the end of the story."
The Experience-Los Medanos College
Pittsburg, CA
"Makeba is promoting the joy of reading and an
appreciation of cultural diversity."
The Goshen News
Goshen, IN
"Storyteller just doesn't say enough...Truly she is
an artist. Her storytelling mesmerized the audience."
The Village View
Waterloo, IA
"Telling stories was something that came naturally to
Makeba."
Oakland Tribune
Oakland, CA
"Awele Makeba slithered about the stage at Pioneer
Middle School, flicking her tongue so fast that the three students sitting closet to her
were slackjawed with disbelief."
Sun-Sentinel
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
"Awele paints pictures with words. She mesmerizes the
young and old as her body dances with the telling of her stories. She is a powerful
workshop presenter bringing out and honoring the storyteller in us all, making important
links to literacy and life long learning through history."
Milton Chen, Executive Director
The George Lucas Educational Foundation
"Awele Makeba is a bright light in the storytelling
world. She brings a depth and a freshness to every stage she graces and those that are
fortunate to hear her inevitably go away with their hearts lifted."
Steve Stanfield, Founder, Artistic Director
Sierra Storytelling Festival
"Awele Makeba is so musical, so much stories-as-song,
that I can only imagine her singing her way to renewal."
Ruth Halpern
Storyline
"Awele Makeba's animated blend of history and culture
in storytelling is a true, hands-down crowd-pleaser. Kids and parents alike are hooked
from the get-go with her abundant enthusiasm."
Susan Coyle, Program Director
SF Bay Area Book Council &
Chair, Kid's Committee SF Bay Area Book Festival
"I shared a stage with Awele Makeba. Wow! Her stories
were thoroughly delightful. I returned to my community and told the festival committee all
about the Teller of All Tales and now she will weave her magic at the Stories of the
Heartland Festival in Albert Lea and Austin, MN."
Michael Cotter, Storyteller
Stories of the Heartland Festival
"Awele Makeba's workshop on storytelling was a great
success, thanks to the depth and range of her knowledge, her own wonderful talent for
telling stories, her ability to put the participants at ease, and for the highly organized
and professional manner in which the workshop was prepared and conducted."
Margaret Norton, Executive Director
San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum
"Awele Makeba is extraordinary! From her roots in
traditional oral storytelling to her dynamic and engaging performance style, Awele, Teller
of All Tales, captivates and thoroughly entertains audience of all ages.
Kathleen Acord, Project Supervisor
Center for Education & Lifelong Learning, KQED TV 9
"Awele Makeba makes you rich with her telling: rich
in laughter, rich in wonder, rich in wisdom. As Awele moves into a story, her listeners
move into delight. You've got a chance to book her? Well, take it and never look
back."
Nancy Duncan, Storyteller & Coordinator
Nebraska Storytelling Festival
"Storytelling is central to the African and
African-American way of life. Our stories relate, in the main to our children, core
values, lessons learned, reverence for the past and hope for the future. Awele Makeba is a
master storyteller in the African-American tradition--as demonstrated by her use of song,
rhythm, and motion and her weaving of humor, wisdom, and truth in an entertaining and
educational manner. At the Third annual Afrocentric Conference, sponsored by the San
Francisco Department of Public Health, her keynote storytelling workshop highlighted root
teachings and pedagogies used by African-American parents and elders through the ages to
bring up our children. It is my hope that she will be able to share these gifts with more
folks in order to preserve and expand this essential folk art and educational tradition of
the African-American community."
Virginia Smyly, MPH, CHES, Deputy Director
Community Health Prevention Branch, San Francisco Department of Public Health
"The passion that Awele has for her telling comes
through in her movements, characters, her very essence. She sparks your imagination, holds
your attention and keeps you excited with her magic."
Debbie Mink, Teacher
Columbia Park Boys & Girls Club
"Awele's unique gift for dramatic storytelling has
the ability to connect the listener to ancestral wisdom and reawaken the voice of the
silenced. She has a treasure."
Dr. Intisar Shareef, Contra Costa College
Co-Chair Early Childhood Education Department
Foster Care Education Director
"Awele Makeba is a marvelous performer, who infuses
her stories with music and passion, and always finds a new way to make her audience a part
of it all. In the mixed-age audiences that flock to public libraries, Awele's programs
touch all ages and all hearts."
Elizabeth Overmeyer
Senior Librarian, Children's Services, Berkeley Public Library
"What an amazing storyteller with a breadth of
experience and knowledge about literature, culture, and history! Not only is she a
wonderful person to work with, Awele speaks to you from her heart and soul."
Sarah Urquhart, History Programs Coordinator
Oakland Museum of California
“It is my prayer
that you will continue to inspire, educate, and empower students to
examine the power of one to change the lives of many.”
Quesha Starks
Principal
Booker T. Washington Magnet High School
Montgomery, AL
"We've
been exploring the trend of museums as gathering places and centers of
civic engagement. The performances of Rage Is Not A One Day Thing! at the
Delaware Art Museum brought us to a new level of exhibition-related
interpretive programming. In these unsettled times it is essential that we
have among us theatre artists and truth tellers like Awele. The students,
especially the alternative high school students, were exposed to emotional
explorations and personal choices in the important context of history,
civil rights and their future as citizens. I believe this powerful piece
changed some of them forever.”
Roberta Adams
Director of Education and Public Programs
Delaware Art Museum
Wilmington, Delaware
"Awele Makeba's performance in Rage Is Not A 1-Day Thing! is a
tour-de-force. Her meticulously researched script tells the compelling
story of black citizens acting as their own agents of change by
challenging the Jim Crow caste system of segregation during the Montgomery
bus boycott of 1955-56. Most exciting for me is the way that
Awele brings history to life. The voices of Claudette Colvin
and Mary Louise Smith, two teenagers, and community leaders Rosa Parks and
JoAnn Robinson illuminate an on-going tradition of resistance and courage.
Makeba's art and scholarship create a powerful teaching tool that
must be experienced.”
William H. Chafe, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Vice
Provost for Undergraduate Education, Professor of History, Duke University
and Co-editor, Remembering Jim Crow, The New Press © 2001
“Awele's
performance of Rage! at Stanford brought the Montgomery bus boycott to
life for my students. Her script combines accurate historical
documentation with vivid characterizations. Best of all, she is a
wonderful actor.”
Clayborne Carson
Professor of History and Director of the King Papers Project, Stanford
University and Senior Editor, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Volumes I-IV
"Nebraska StoryArts is
extraordinarily proud of having featured Awele Makeba’s work in Nebraska
for four years (2000-2004) and to have participated in the development of
her brilliant work-in-progress, RAGE IS NOT A ONE DAY THING. Awele’s
willingness to do her own research, to analyze the research of others, to
seek out and develop relationships with participants in the actual
happenings she is researching, and to create a script that speaks
clearly and directly to multitudes of issues not always made clear in
history books is remarkable. But most remarkable of all is her
genius in performance and talk back. Well directed by Benny Sato
Ambush, RAGE IS NOT A ONE DAY THING continues to grow in power as
more and more audiences respond to and participate in shaping the work.
Awele is immediately accessible in performance. She is an
eminent storyteller, a brilliant teacher, a challenger of assumptions, and
a leader in how to make history come to life for young people. But she
does more. She enables each member of the audience to see themselves
in history, not as a victim but as an active participant. Awele
enables us to claim our own role in shaping the future."
Nancy Duncan
Artistic Director, Nebraska StoryArts
“The power of Awele’s work
is that she unearths stories that haven’t been told – stories that
contribute to our understanding individual roles in history, contribute to
our ability to think deeply about the issues that affect our own lives.”
Kathy Simon
Co-Executive Director, Coalition of Essential Schools
"Awele Makeba's extensive oral history
interviews with Claudette Colvin and her research on other women and teen
participants of the Montgomery Bus Boycott represent an important addition
to the scholarly research on the modern Civil Rights struggle. Just as
importantly, her riveting performance based on those sources brings to life
important dimensions of the Boycott in a way that is at once accessible,
entertaining, and thought provoking for a variety of audiences, from student
to specialist. The students, faculty, administrators, and community
people attending her performance at Western Michigan University were both
intellectually engaged and deeply moved by the experience. Awele is
the real deal."
Mitch Kachun,
Western Michigan University and author, Festivals of Freedom: Memory
and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press © 2003
“History IS about
living people and Awele (ah WAY lay) Makeba has certainly done her homework
in bringing to life significant players surrounding the Montgomery Bus
Boycott. Like a shape shifter her body, voice and entire being becomes
the people she has researched and set out to represent. One is touched
by the stories that she has artfully assembled, meticulously researched and
performed with dignity. It is rare to find one individual with the
combined skills of an historical researcher, playwright, actor and educator,
but Awele is one of these few. It is a must see for those who are
interested in witnessing a rare theatrical event, as Awele transforms
herself again and again as the story unfolds. More importantly, it is a must
see for the entire population so that they can listen to Rage! and transform
it into outrage at the horrors of prejudice and segregation and their
far-reaching legacy. Awele brings audiences to this point and beyond
with her authentic conversations with audiences after her exhausting
performance. Colleagues raved about the experience and made
arrangements to take their classes to the next public performance. Be
prepared for a momentous experience.”
Dr. Joe Norris
Director of Education, Washington State
University Vancouver
"Awele Makeba embodies the
story of Claudette Colvin, an unsung hero of the Civil Rights Movement, with
a fiery spirit. Her acting and the young Colvin's activism are the stuff
myths are made of. Anyone who cares about the triumph of the human
spirit will become a devoted fan of both Claudette Colvin and Awele Makeba."
Jewelle Gomez
Writer, Poet, Activist, Literary Critic
Awele creates bridges that
reconnect audiences to their national soul. She entertains and ignites
in the way of a young Maya Angelou; she reveals the connection of crisis and
renewal as does Ntozake Shange; she uncovers the personal within the
historic like Anna Deavere Smith. But Awele is like no other in her ability
to awaken her audiences in three areas - race, history and art. Laughing and
clapping or stunned into silence, we are aware of barriers and fears,
preconceptions and inhibitions, magically falling away. We leave her feeling
fired up, newly equipped, emboldened and sensitized at once.”
Pat Holt
Former Book Review Editor, San Francisco Chronicle and Editor,
Holtuncensored.com
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