Committed to Listen:
Observing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2025
An in-person performance of “The Malaga Ship: A Story of Maine and the Middle Passage” by Antonio Rocha
Monday, January 20, 2025
12 pm (Eastern)
In person at HopeGateWay Church
515 Woodford Street, Portland, Maine
Tickets are free and should be reserved in advance as space is limited. Donations will be gratefully received to support the work of the Maine Council of Churches.
To observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2025, the Maine Council of Churches, The BTS Center, and Atlantic Black Box are collaborating to host a public, in-person, mid-day performance of Antonio Rocha’s solo show, “The Malaga Ship: A story of Maine and the Middle Passage.”
The Malaga was a 183-ton brig built in 1832 in Brunswick Maine, in a shipyard owned by Joseph Badger. The ship eventually found herself as part of the already illegal transatlantic trade of African captives to the Americas, especially Brazil.
“The Malaga Ship” is a tour de force performance. Using his entire body and voice, performing artist Antonio Rocha sings, narrates, and mimes his way through this poetically toned historical tale told mostly from the perspective of the ship. The story vividly explores the reality and impact of the slave industry — the largest industry in the world in the 1800s. The story also has deep meaning for the performer, since Malaga goes to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1845, where Rocha was raised in a biracial household over a century later.
“I could not believe the coincidences between the ship and myself,” Rocha says. “She was built in Maine and went to Brazil to bring to my home country part of my ancestry. I was born in Brazil and came to Maine where I learned to be a storyteller. The more I read about Malaga, the more I realized I was born to tell her story.”
The gathering will include music, the 45-minute performance, conversation with the actor, and space for reflection and sharing.
HopeGateWay Church is located at 515 Woodford Street in Portland, Maine.
Praise for “The Malaga Ship”
“Antonio Rocha’s performance of Malaga was riveting! Antonio masterfully activates the imagination of the audience using history, mime, and spellbinding characters to tell this tale in a unique and fascinating way. He navigates us through a litany of emotions, and in conclusion we discover that we learn a great deal about history and ourselves.”
— Betsy Heid-Puelle, drama teacher at Yarmouth High School, Maine
“To paraphrase Maya Angelou, ‘It may be enough to have it said that we [as a people] survive in exact relationship to the dedication’ of our artists. So often, understanding and informing history is most effectively achieved through the many forms of artistic expression. In his extraordinary performance of the ‘The Malaga Ship: A Story of Maine and the Middle Passage,’ Antonio Rocha exemplifies the way in which the difficult history of the trans-Atlantic human trade is infused with ‘shades of deeper meaning,’ brought to life, and shared.
— Ann Cobb Executive Director and Ann Chin, Program Director, Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project
“Antonio delivers one of the most breathtaking and poignant performances I have ever seen… We were honored to have his work showcased for members and friends of the JFK Hyannis Museum.”
— Wendy Northcross, co-founder and Executive Director, John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum
Learn more:
Watch a two-minute trailer here.
Listen to a podcast conversation here.
Visit Antonio Rocha’s website here.
Support the work of the Maine Council of Churches
This event is free. All donations will support the important work of the Maine Council of Churches, including their work for racial justice. Your gift will help to create a more just, equitable, compassionate, sustainable, and inclusive community in Maine. Gifts of any size will be gratefully received. Please consider making a donation when you register.
Meet Antonio Rocha
Antonio Rocha, originally from Brazil, began his career in the performing arts in 1985. In 1988 he received a Partners of the Americas grant to come to the USA to perform and deepen his mime skills with Mime Master Tony Montanaro. Since then he has earned a Summa Cum Laude Theater BA from USM (University of Southern Maine) and studied with Master Marcel Marceau.
Mr. Rocha has performed his unique and award-winning solo fusion of mime and storytelling, with mesmerizing voices and sound effects, from Singapore to South Africa and many places in between, including 20 countries on six continents, as well as in 44 US states. Some of the venues include The Singapore Festival of the Arts, Wolf Trap, The National Storytelling Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian Institution, The National Geographic, The Tales of Graz in Austria, Dunya Festival, The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, Cave Run Storytelling Festival as well as thousands of school performances.
Antonio Rocha also loves to teach his craft and often facilitates workshops, not only for performers, but for those who want to incorporate storytelling into their business presentations and classroom.
A two-time TEDx speaker, Mr. Rocha is a proud recipient of the coveted Circle of Excellence Award by the National Storytelling Network, and most recently the 2024 Maine Arts Commission Fellowship for the Performing Arts.
Meet the Host Organizations
Maine Council of Churches
Founded in 1938, the Maine Council of Churches is a nonprofit, ecumenical coalition of seven mainline Protestant member denominations, all of whom have their roots in Hebrew and Christian scripture. Our seven member denominations have 435 congregations in Maine with more than 55,000 members in their care; our membership also includes two associate member congregations and one cooperating body denomination. The Council’s mission is to speak with a prophetic voice of faith, connecting people within, through, and beyond the church to create a more just, compassionate, and peaceful world.
The BTS Center
With roots dating back to 1814, The BTS Center is a private operating foundation in Portland, Maine, building on the legacy of the former Bangor Theological Seminary. The mission of The BTS Center is to catalyze spiritual imagination, with enduring wisdom, for transformative faith leadership. Through theologically grounded programs of continuing education and spiritual / vocational formation, including workshops and retreats, learning communities, reading groups, public conversations, and projects of applied research, The BTS Center seeks to cultivate and nurture spiritual leadership for a climate-changed world.
Atlantic Black Box
Atlantic Black Box empowers communities throughout the Northeast to take up the critical work of researching and reckoning with our region’s complicity in colonization, the slave trade, and the global economy of enslavement. This grassroots historical recovery movement is powered by community historians and guided by a broad coalition of scholars, community leaders, educators, archivists, museum professionals, antiracism activists, and artists.
Made possible with funding from:
