Programs may be designed for all ages unless specified. All performances are available throughout the year. Customized events are designed upon consultation. Study Guides are provided.

sweet head yomi
SWEET POTATO PIE AND SUCH (Adjustable for all Ages)
A flavorful seasoning of tales from the African and African American Oral Tradition that will ground you in tradition, butter you up with joy and delightfully sweeten your mind. Designed for audiences to participate, celebrate and “Jubilate.” Values are indelibly remembered through lively folktales, fables, and fairytales.

skip line
THEY PUT A STAMP ON IT! (primary)
An interactive storytelling celebration that shares the life and accomplishments of African-Americans who have been honored by being placed on a United States stamp.  Performance includes historical stories, a black scientist rap and civil rights songs with musical accompaniment.  (Dr. George Washington Carver, Benjamin Banneker, Charles Drew, Madame C.J. Walker, Jan E. Matzeliger, Julian Percy, John Henry, Harriet Tubman, Jackie Robinson, Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Kwanzaa).  Includes slide show of stamps.

 

THEY PUT A STAMP ON IT! (secondary)
An interactive storytelling celebration that shares the life and accomplishments of African-Americans who have been honored by being placed on a Unites States stamp.  Performance includes historical stories and poetry with musical accompaniment (Mary McCleod Bethune, Anna Julian Cooper, Fannie Lou Hamer, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Zora Neale Hurston, Greenboro Lunch Counter Sit In, Freedom Riders, Marion Anderson, Kwanzaa) Includes slide show of stamps.


STORY SELebration (K-5) (6-8)
An interactive storytelling celebration that engages the social emotional learning competencies.  Using folktales and original songs and chants the audiences participate in call and response stories that impart self-awareness, social awareness, building of relationship skills, responsible decision making and self management. Audiences walk away rhythmically singing, “I take my time and think about it.”  For New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware contact YANJEP.  Outside states may contact us directly.

ntlstorytellingfest
NO MYSTERY IN BLACK HISTORY (Adjustable for All Ages)
Unforgettable lessons of heroes and heroines begins with a journey to West Africa with “Drum Story,” an introduction to the first drum in Africa.  It continues with the cultural meanings and messages that originated with the first drums, then carries through to African American milestones from the enslavement, reconstruction, civil rights and the black lives matter periods.  With story, poetry, songs, call and response and rhythms, we celebrate such historical figures as Stagecoach Mary, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mamie Peanut Johnson, Malcom X and John Lewis.

s41874ta114294_8_0
VOICES OF COURAGE  (Grades 5-up)
A collection of biographic vignettes highlighting outspoken African American women of the 19th Century, including Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Cathy Williams, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell and Mary McCleod Bethune. Themes of courage and fortitude are explored as the one-woman performance reveals each heroine’s oratory style and fashion of the period. 

bilde
THE BULLY FREE ZONE (K-5)
Participants learn that the #1 Bully-Free Zone is SELF. Tales enlivened by music are interactively told. Audience members are chosen as Bully Free Zone Leaders to identify bully traits in the stories. They lead the full assembly in a Bully-Free Zone call and response, and identify opposing buddy traits.

FREEDOM INSPIRITED:  Juneteenth – The Nation’s Freedom Holiday That Began Upon Different Shores (All Ages)

The celebration begins with a story honoring ancestors and Queen Nur’s telling that story at Elmina Castle in Ghana. The journey continues in celebration of resilience and resistance through the “knowing” of the right to freedom that was expressed in the hushes and hollers as coded messages through songs, chants, field hollers. The performance renders a powerful story of Henry Box Brown and leads us tostory of the writing of the emancipation and the 2.5 year delay in its reaching Galveston Texas on June 19th of 1865.  Storytelling is intertwined with African Drumming, including a log drum (the first drum made in Africa), slit gongs, and cajons.

kwanzaa celebrating deeds
KWANZAA TIME (All Ages)
This program involves participating in a Kwanzaa celebration, with full explanation of the principles and symbols of the African American holiday. Lessons are expounded through original call and response, songs, stories, drumming and dance.

williamsport2
CELEBRATING DIVERSITY (All Ages)
This highly interactive performance teaches cross-cultural appreciation. Stories are energetically presented from around the world, including African, American, Asian, Latino, Indian, Arabian and Jewish cultures.

queen stories in service
THE GAMES WE PLAY (All Ages)
Once upon a time children played with children…..Get Happy with Hambone, Stomp It Up with Step it Down and Pitty Pat Jack in this full audience participation event engaging members in traditional and newly created cooperative games from the oral tradition – an interpersonal alternative to video games.

OCEANS OF POSSIBILITIES
Interactive Stories accompanied by instruments with environmental sounds that teaches good stewardship of the earth, respect for nature, and lessons of peace.

Customized Performances
Our extensive repertoire can be customized for toddlers, grade school, college, adults, seniors, corporations, family audiences and various occasions.