For over 30 years, Charlotte Blake Alston has graced stages in venues throughout North America and abroad, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Symphony Orchestra Narrations and at regional, national, and international Storytelling Festivals. Charlotte breathes life into traditional and contemporary stories from African and African American oral and cultural traditions. Her storytelling skills were honed in childhood when her father introduced her to the work of African American poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar. Her solo performances are often enhanced with traditional instruments such as djembe, mbira, or the 21-stringed kora. In 1999, Charlotte began studying the kora and the West African history-telling traditions of Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Guinea Bissau.