Storyteller Jeff Gere to Perform ‘Tales of Forgiveness’

Storyteller Jeff Gere will use a collage of images, masks, music, and live narrative to deliver Tales of Forgiveness at EHCCʻs Kahual ʻElua Theatre on April 9, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. Included is the tale of three monks who meet on a forlorn mountain trail where thrilling adventures, worldly wisdom, and exquisitely sad beauty unfold.

The East Hawai’i Cultural Center will host Tales of Forgiveness, a performance by Hawai’i storyteller, puppeteer, and mime Jeff Gere on April 9, 2019, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at the Kahua ‘Elua secondfloor theater.

Tickets are $10 for EHCC members and $15 for general admission at the door.

Gere will perform live narrative amid a unique video of collage illustrations over a musical bed.

The evening will open with two true, local supernatural tales of forgiveness, including the story of a Hawaiian family that begs a stone to forgive them.

The evening will continue with a 45-minute rendition of Tales of the Three Monks.

Themes in the show are suitable to adult audiences, as they include Buddhist thought, supernatural events, sexual references and violence. A discussion will end the evening.

Gere notes that he has a “fascination with the powerful emotional effects of tragic tales.” He read the The Three Monks as a college student 40 years ago and added it to his canon with a Vietnamese folktale found in a picture book.

He admits that he is “still not sure why such tragic tales of love affect him and his audiences. But they do.”

He has performed the stories at Honolulu’s Spalding House Museum, where people wept in response and at the Hawai‘i Book & Music Fest and Hawai‘i Public Radio.

Born on Halloween, Gere is an active performer. For over 20 years, he produced the Talk Story Festival, Hawai‘i’s biggest storytelling celebration, and Story TV, a monthly program. Talk Story Radio, story camps and conferences round out his undertakings. He taught storytelling at UH Mānoa, performed at the National Storytelling Festival and performed in Spain, Hong Kong, Turkey, Vancouver, and the Yukon.

He retired from the Oʻahu Parks Department in 2014 and began international tours to Thailand, China, Japan, Australia and twice to India, Romania and Taiwan. He also has an upcoming performance tour to Kenya in June, 2019.

For further information, contact Jackie Pualani Johnson, EHCC board member, at (808) 937-6600.