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About
"Awele creates bridges that reconnect audiences to their national soul. She entertains and ignites in the way of a young Maya Angelou; she reveals the connection of crisis and renewal as does Ntozake Shange; she uncovers the personal within the historic like Anna Deavere Smith. But Awele is like no other in her ability to awaken her audiences in three areas - race, history, and art. Laughing and clapping or stunned into silence, we are aware of barriers and fears, preconceptions and inhibitions, magically falling away. We leave her feeling fired up, newly equipped, emboldened, and sensitized at once.”
- Pat Holt, Former Book Review Editor, San Francisco Chronicle and Editor, Holtuncensored.com
Awele (ah-WAY-lay) Makeba is an internationally renowned storyteller, a stage actor, an acclaimed recording artist for film and CDs, an award-winning drama teacher, a literacy specialist, a racial justice activist, the producer of the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Oratorical Festival (Oakland Unified School District) featured in the Emmy-winning documentary, We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical (2020) and storyteller-in-residence for Dr. Clay Carson at Stanford U: The World House Project. She is elated about her forthcoming role, The Dark Queen of the Night in the animated production of The Magic Flute (Pocket Opera and The Gibbs Sisters) premiering in 2023! Awele is recognized as a “truthteller,” someone who sparks “aha!” moments.
Inspired by folklore, myth, life experiences, and the hidden histories of African Americans, Awele’s stories focus on making meaning of the present, understanding the influences of the past, and imagining new futures. Her life’s work is to tell history through the words of silenced and oft-forgotten witnesses; and use art to catalyze deep conversations about race, our common humanity, and our vision of a just, humane, multiracial society
Awele researches, writes, and performs African American history, folklore, and personal tales. She provides opportunities for audiences to grapple with the meaning of their own lives and make meaning of past lives. Awele uses performance as text, and she animates democracy through her art. She has mesmerized audiences around the world, from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.) and Peace Center for the Performing Arts (Greenville, S.C.) to The Musikverein (Vienna), Tsinchu Teacher’s College (Taiwan), Suriname (U.S. Dept. of State Tour), Russia, Austria, Australia, France, Costa Rica, and Canada. She has toured the United States from Alaska to Mississippi and Hawaii to New Hampshire. And has she got a story for you!
Storytelling was there at the beginning of Awele’s life, passed down from her great-great-grandparents and grandmother Ruth to Awele’s thespian daddy, who animated his constant stream of tales with sound effects and gestures during long family car trips from St. Louis to visit extended family in Mississippi. From a young age, she studied dance (ballet, pointe, tap, and modern) and piano, excelled at gymnastics, and started her career in theater arts at Normandy High School, continuing her training in song, dance, and theater at Webster University’s Conservatory of Theater Arts, where she earned a B.F.A. Later, she received her M.A. in Education: Language and Literacy from San Francisco State University and a Career Technology Education Credential from the University of California at Berkeley. She has given keynote performances, guest lectures, and interactive workshops at museums, cultural centers, festivals, libraries, churches, and universities (including Stanford) across the fifty states.
Whether on stage in Bay Area productions, traveling the world on a myriad of storytelling tours, speaking at TED, appearing in films (for example, Milk with Sean Penn), or providing voice-overs for award-winning projects, she has balanced her dynamic artistic career with outstanding achievements as a drama teacher at Skyline High School in Oakland. Her students have performed at the American High School Theatre Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland), received a Broadway World San Francisco Region Award for Best Performance, and they’ve been invited to perform at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In 2018, Awele was honored with a CTEIG 21st Century Innovation Grant; in 2019, she received an NBC Universal Sports All-Star Teacher Award; in 2020, an American Theatre Wing Classroom Grant; in 2020, HBO received an EMMY in Outstanding Children's Program for their documentary featuring her Dr. MLK, Jr. Oratorical program; in 2021 the award-winning documentary was nominated for an NAACP Image Award (Outstanding Children’s Program), and Awele is the recipient of the 2021 Webster University Distinguished Alumni Award.
Ms. Makeba is also storyteller-in-residence for Dr. Clayborne, Stanford: The World House Project; a company member of Theatre First; former community producer for the Magic Theatre’s Magic Oakland program; a founding member of Vukani Mawethu (a South African Freedom Song Choir based in Oakland); a contributor to the book Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy, edited by Philippa Kelly, Routledge 2020; and the playwright of four one-woman shows, Rage Is Not A 1-Day Thing!: The Untaught History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, I’m Not Getting On Until Jim Crow Gets Off (about the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott and four courageous, visionary women: Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, Rosa Parks, and JoAnn Robinson), Family Genealogy, and her forthcoming work, Bearing Witness: Breaking the Silence.
Storytelling Ancestorial Muses, Advisors & Champions
1. LeRoi Moore, The GrooGrux King
2. Sir Ken Robinson, International Advisor on Creativity and Education in the Arts
