Jeff Gere

As the Iraq War approached and launched, four Honolulu performing artists created a wildly popular collaborative storytelling theater interpreting the brilliant surreal tales of the Arabian Nights. We interpreted the original thirteenth century text in music, dance and verse. Jeff Gere served as storyteller, researcher & promoter; Reggae McGowen was our drummer/percussionist and Steven Rosenthal contributed an array of flutes and original instrumentalist. Belly Dancer Willow Chang proved supple with the dramatics as well, extending the narrative throughout. 

Crafted to amuse Muslim men in tea houses (for a fee), each story is an intricate weaving of several tales within a tale. This tapestry entwines the threads of high adventure, love and passion, in palaces and deserts, often with supernatural magic and ginn (genies). Lush poetry appears in all the tales, and sexual liaisons, taboo forbidden acts, disturbing violence, war, and philosphical discussions of free will, fate, and the omni-present power of Allah.

First staged to open the Doris Duke Islamic Museum, it continued for a four show series in the Honolulu Academy of Arts Theatre (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanties). All these shows turned away crowds. 

A 'warm-up' show for each Academy performances became an 18 month run of Saturdays  (in all, 10 full 90 minute + shows) in the posh Indigo Restaurant's Opium Den, in Honolulu's Chinatown. These shows often sold out, reservations filling 3 weeks ahead. I've never had such a run-away hit. I went to Turkey twice to research & soak up Islam (the second trip I participated in the Karagoz Shadow Puppet Festival, the only American with Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians!)