Storyteller and singer Charlotte Blake Alston, whose repertoire includes stories and songs from the African and African American experience, presents an evening of scary tales for children of all ages. With exuberant energy, Charlotte Blake Alston speaks stories in ways that beckon and hold you like an amusement park ride. Time is suspended as audiences soar on every word, song, rap, inflection, gesture or drum beat. Her stories are enhanced by the sounds of traditional instruments including djembe, berimbau, nkoning, mbira and the 21-stringed kora. A former teacher, Charlotte skillfully adapts her presentations to the age and grade level of her audience, inviting active and joyful participation. Since 1995, Charlotte has been the host of the Carnegie Hall Family Performance Series, and since 1997 the new Carnegie Kids Series. She received the 1997 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Artist of the Year Award.
Charlotte Blake Alston's voice is an hypnotic instrument which draws the listener into her stories with spoken rhythms, interwoven passages of song, and a general feeling that the storyteller is a lens through which the story is passing to you – the audience. The listener is reconnected with magic in Ms. Alston's fables of flying slaves, epic arguments, and tall tales. The stories themselves build on repetitions of key phrases building sound sequences into elaborate oral architectures, but always looping back to day-to-day lessons which connect to listeners' lives. Through call and response, imaginative vocal caricature, and the liberal use of humor, Ms. Alston conveys wisdom in beautifully rendered if utterly fantastic stories which reach from tragedy to comedy touching her audiences' hearts through their own ears and voices. Charlotte Alston received her B.S. in Elementary Education from Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. Alston was a classroom teacher until 1990, when she left teaching after 18 years to devote herself exclusively to interpretive storytelling. In 1997 she received the Hazlett Memorial Award from the Governor of Pennsylvania, and her work has been heard on Crossroads, a national magazine of culture and the arts aired on public radio stations nationwide. She has performed her stories in many venues regionally and nationally, including frequent performances at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
10/31/99: Charlotte Blake Alston
