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Sharing Mana‘o

There is a fine line between fact and fiction. When that line is blurred, when story becomes life, and vice versa . . . magic happens.

As a presenter at the recent Hawaii Book and Music Festival in Honolulu, I was blessed to witness numerous magical moments produced by my fellow storytellers. The two-day lineup included Jeff Gere, Hawaii’s premier tale weaver and the man responsible for my own storytelling career. Maui boy Moses Goods (though he’s lived on Oahu for some 20 years now, we still claim him as one of our own) captivated us with legends of the Honolulu area and a brief excerpt from his acclaimed one-man show about Duke Kahanamoku. Mysteries of Hawaii tour guide Lopaka Kapanui provided chicken-skin thrills with his contemporary ghost stories. Alton Chung, a local boy of Japanese and Korean descent who now splits his time between Oahu and the West Coast, transported us to the battlefields of Bruyeres and Biffontaine with his true-life tales of the 100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat team, the go-for-broke nisei heroes of World War II.

The local storytelling community is small and therefore supportive. Most of us came early and stayed beyond our sets to enjoy each other’s performances. We were delighted to welcome a new friend into our fold: Craig Jenkins, from London and India.

Craig has lived in India for the past seven years, telling stories and teaching the art, primarily to disadvantaged and at-risk youth. His specialty is the Indian epic Ramayana, but his performances reach far beyond simple recitation. As he says, “I enjoy taking old stories and reworking them with rhyme, rhythm and energy, and placing them in the here and now.”

Last Sunday, he told a sweet story of a simple man who, upon hearing a master storyteller relate a part of the Ramayana in which a precious ring is lost at the bottom of the sea, jumps up and runs off to find the ring. The others in the audience laugh and scorn him, but the man soon returns with the actual ring in his hand. Everyone except the storyteller is stunned. The sage proclaims the simpleton to be a wise man indeed, one who instinctively made the magical connection between story and reality.

It’s impossible to adequately describe in print Craig’s engaging style and sincere love for the art and the audience. Fortunately, you have several opportunities to see for yourself. Thanks to Jeff, who met Craig at an international storytelling conference last year, the two have embarked on a statewide tour. Craig will be on Maui on Saturday night at the ProArts Playhouse in Kihei, at Kaunoa Senior Center on Monday morning, then at the Coffee Attic in Wailuku on Monday evening. I’m excited to be opening the ProArts performance with a few Tita tales.

Meeting Craig for the first time, I felt as if I had found a long lost childhood friend and had stepped back to our hanabata days. Jeff is an eternal child himself, and the three of us literally danced our way through a Honolulu street party Saturday night. We couldn’t get anyone to join us, but we did garner quite a few smiles and only one or two scowls.

The next day, after Craig’s first set, we walked over to the keiki stage to watch another mutual friend, Yasu Ishida, who had just returned from performing at the Maui Matsuri. Yasu’s blending of magic and storytelling was delightful, and his finale was the highlight of the festival.

He told the audience that he wanted to share a very personal story. “Once there was a man named Yasu. He was a storyteller and a magician.” He talked about meeting a young woman named Jess, who was in the audience, and how she helped him become a better artist and a better man. He invited her to join him onstage, got down on one knee, pulled a ring from his pocket, and said, “I know there will be rough times, but I want to weather the storms with you. I want us to cry together, laugh together, grow together. Will you marry me, Jess?”

When she tearfully nodded yes, a young boy in the front row leapt from his seat, threw his arms up and shouted, “She said yes! She said yes!” The kid hadn’t known Yasu before the performance, but he knew that he had been privileged to share in a very special moment.

I hope you can attend one of Craig’s Maui shows. I doubt that anything as dramatic as a proposal will take place, but I can promise you that magic will indeed happen.

* Kathy Collins is a storyteller, actress and freelance writer whose “Sharing Mana’o” column appears every Wednesday. Her email address is kcmaui913@gmail.com.

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