Jason Brennan, Business and Operations Manager and Antonio Roch, Internationally Acclaimed Storyteller
Antonio Rocha Brings “The Malaga Ship” to Winnipeg: A Story of Slavery, Survival, Self-Discovery, and Healing
The Winnipeg International Storytelling Festival, presented by the Arthur V. Mauro Institute for Peace & Justice at St. Paul’s College, hosted the Canadian premiere of The Malaga Ship, an inspiring and heart-wrenching one-man performance by internationally acclaimed storyteller Antonio Rocha, on Friday, May 9 at EG Hall, University of Winnipeg.
While his impeccable art of storytelling was both meaningful and impactful, his second ‘act,’ – a “talk-back” with his audience, was contextually revealing. Born and raised in Brazil, Rocha moved to Maine about 38 years ago to study mime and theatre. Only after settling in the very state where The Malaga was built did he learn of the ship’s role in forcefully transporting free Africans to enslavement in Brazil.
“I could not believe the coincidences between the ship and myself,” explained Rocha. “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 The Malaga, the more I realized I was born to tell her story.”
That discovery sparked a profound realization, challenge, and change. As Rocha shared: “I verbally told myself I would never tell hard stories… But if the ancestors notice you avoiding your purpose, they will knock you down. And that’s what happened to me.”
Rocha suffered a debilitating panic attack in 2018, which he now understands as a moment of reckoning with ancestral trauma – a legacy he inherited from his father, who lived with untreated psychological wounds rooted in slavery’s aftermath.
With the support of healers, therapists, and a spiritual reawakening, Rocha emerged transformed. In 2020, he was introduced to the story of The Malaga through Maine-based Smithsonian artist and scholar Daniel Minter. “I went to Maine to learn storytelling,” Rocha noted. “But really, my story found me.” His story found him and instilled in him a profound sense of “ancestral duty.” It was a story that was waiting for centuries to be told, and it came alive on stage.
“This performance is unlike anything I’ve done before…,” said Rocha. “I transform into a vessel – into the ship herself -holding the pain and resilience of five million Africans forced into slavery.”
In embodying the Malaga Ship, Rocha used his training in mime to evoke crashing waves, creaking timbers, bloodied floors and sorrowful cries of human captives. Yet the performance is not only about tragedy. It is also about resilience and healing.
In reflecting on Antonio Rocha’s performance and the revival of the Winnipeg International Storytelling Festival (English), Dr. Stanley Amaladas, Director of the Arthur V. Mauro Institute for Peace and Justice, noted: “Such is the power of storytelling. In telling his story, Antonio’s ancestors offered him a gift to daringly claim his voice. I will remember Antonio Rocha’s story of The Malaga Ship and storytelling as a spiritual journey and a call to courageously remember, reflect, and heal. Indeed, it is a pathway to peace and justice. I believe that this is the fundamental purpose of the Winnipeg International Storytelling Festival.”