VENUE:
Alphabet City, 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15212

2018 Storytelling with Motoko 
by Motoko Dworkin

Presented by City of Asylum at Alphabet City.

Parents’ Choice Award-winning storyteller Motoko has regaled children of all ages across the US for 25 years with folktales from her native Japan. Motoko has appeared on “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” and has been awarded numerous grants for her arts-in-education programs. She is the author of A Year in Japan: Folktales, Songs and Art for the Classroom.  In 2017 Motoko received the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence Award. More info available at www.motoko.folktales.net

About the Performer:The recipient of the National Storytelling Network’s 2017 Circle of Excellence Award, Motoko has enchanted audiences of every age since 1993. She trained with master mime Tony Montanaro (1927-2002) and renowned Appalachian storyteller Elizabeth Ellis. Motoko’s repertoire includes Asian folktales, Rakugo and Zen tales, ghost stories, mime vignettes, as well as oral memoirs from her childhood in Osaka and her life as an immigrant in the U.S.

Motoko has appeared on PBS’ Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and toured Miyazaki, Japan, as part of CarnegieKids in Miyazaki Project, sponsored by Carnegie Hall. She has been featured in festivals and theaters across the U.S., most notably, the National Storytelling Festival, Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, Bay Area Storytelling Festival, and the Provincetown Playhouse at NYU. 

As a teaching artist, Motoko has been awarded numerous grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and New York State BOCES. Her story CDs have won a Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award, a Storytelling World Award, and a National Parenting Publications Award (NAPPA). She is the author of A Year in Japan: Folktales, Songs and Art for the Classroom.

2015 saw the premiere of her storytelling concert, “Rakugo: Comical Tales from Japan” (featuring Masayo Ishigure on koto and shamisen) at the University of Massachusetts. In 2016 Motoko made her fourth featured appearance at the prestigious National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, where she premiered “RADIANT: Stories from Fukushima,” an original one-woman multimedia performance on Japan’s 2011 nuclear power plant meltdown.
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DATES AND TIMES:
Saturday, April 7 at 3:00 PM

Show Run Time:
60 Minutes

​Prices:
  • Free Tickets - You still need a reservation, but they will be free for this show!
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