CELEBRATION BARN PRESENTS STORYTELLING WITH MILBRE BURCH AND ANTONIO ROCHA SATURDAY, JULY 18
SOUTH PARIS — Celebration Barn Theater welcomes world class storytellers, Milbre Burch and Antonio Rocha, on Saturday, July 18,  for two events. The 4 p.m. “Meet the Artists” presentation provides insights into the craft of storytelling through demonstrations with current Barn students. The 8 p.m. performance, “You Don’t Say,” features masterfully told tales by Rocha and Burch.
In the “Meet the Artists” presentation, Burch and Rocha share their knowledge of how to use the power of voice, body, heart, memory and imagination to tell stories which travel through time and across cultures. “Meet the Artists: events are designed to give audiences a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes and see inside the creative work of guest professional performing artists.
The 8 p.m. show, “You Don’t Say” brings these two world-class performers together for an evening of myths, folklore and tall tales. Rocha is celebrated for his “stories in motion.” Burch  has been Grammy-nominated for her “theater of the spoken word.”
Antonio Rocha, a native of Brazil, began his career in the performing arts in 1985. In 1988 he received a Partners of the Americas grant to come to the U.S.  to perform and deepen his mime skills with Master Tony Montanaro. Since then he has earned a Summa Cum Laude Theater bachelor’s from the University of Southern Maine and studied with Master Marcel Marceau. Rocha’s unique solo shows of stories and mime have been performed from Singapore to Hawaii and many places in between including 10 countries on five continents. Some of the venues include The Singapore Festival of the Arts, Aruba International Dance Festival, The National Storytelling Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic, The Tales of Graz in Austria, Dunya Festival in Holland as well as many other Storytelling restivals and educational institutions around country   Rocha is a member of the Maine Arts Commission, The New England Foundation for the Arts and the National Storytelling Association.

Milbre Burch has been called “one of the most important voices in the American storytelling revival.” She is renowned for her repertoire of world folktales, her interpretations of Jane Yolen stories, her use of first person narrative and dramatic monologue, and her crafting of personal stories interwoven with tales from legend and lore. She tours her one-woman shows as “Theatre of the Spoken Word” and has released 12 solo spoken word recordings on the Kind Crone label. A Circle of Excellence winner, she was featured for the seventh time at the National Storytelling Festival in October, 2005. She received a Grammy nomination in 2007 for her spoken word for children album, “Making the Heart Whole Again.”
Doors open at 7:30 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show.

Celebration Barn Theater is located on Stock Farm Road, just off Route 117 in South Paris. For more information, visit the theater’s website: www.CelebrationBarn.com. Tickets for the Meet the Artists event are $8 all seats. Evening show tickets are $14 adults, $12 seniors and $8 students and kids. Reservations are strongly encouraged. For more information, call the Celebration Barn box office at 743-8452.