Delaware’s Division of the Arts 2023 Individual Master Fellowship in Oral Literature artist celebrates 30 years this weekend.
Growing up in a large family, Tahira found storytelling a natural extension to getting and maintaining attention. She says it was important to grab and hold the family’s attention quickly in order to even be acknowledged.
"You're not going to get attention in this crowded room unless you could really capture somebody - I mean by capture, your entry into the story’s got to be powerful to get all these people to pay attention - then you’ve got to keep them."
Storytelling was a natural fit for her, and it became a vocation when she was a young mother, looking for work that would keep her close to her daughter.
Over the years, Tahira has appeared across Delaware, the nation and around the world - including a performance at the internationally acclaimed PANAFEST festival, in Ghana, West Africa.
As an occasional recipient of Division of the Arts support over three decades, Tahira has seen its vision of a creative economy taking shape among local businesses.
"They understand the power of the arts and its connection to the economy. The aesthetics of things - and they realized that people need this. As we began to go back outside and reconnect to each other, I think even businesses really began to understand the power of that."
Tahira’s concert celebrating her 30 years as a full-time storyteller and musician is Saturday at the Route 9 Library & Innovation Center in New Castle. It begins at 3pm.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
