Nancy Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, two artists met and fell in love. One was a workaholic, the other wise, for she knew the only way to have time with her new husband was to work with him, and thus was born their dynamic duo of music, movement and the spoken word.

For 25 years, Nancy Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo — better known as the acclaimed storytelling duo Eth-Noh-Tec — have been saving the world, and entertaining hundreds of thousands of people while doing it.

“It is strange and wonderful how things become the way they become,” says Wang. “When I was the exciting age of 17 and off to college, Robert was building forts, flying kites, riding bikes and getting dirty rolling in the mud at 7. Who knew what the future would hold.”

Now, a quarter century on, Wang and Kikuchi-Yngojo will mark the occasion with a series of performances in San Francisco.

“25 Live!” will kick off with Eth-Noh-Tec’s annual Halloween event, “Ghouls and Ghosts,” on Saturday, Oct. 27, at San Francisco’s Randall Museum, this year joined by Alton Chung with scary stories from Hawaii.

On Saturday, Nov. 17, the pair will host “Salon! You’re On” at the ENT Studio ( 977 S. Van Ness, San Francisco).

“The salon will feature international independent films in addition to our usual story-telling,” says Kikuchi-Yngojo. “The evening will serve as a fundraiser for women traveling the world to bring light to the troubles afforded by US military bases on their lands such as Okinawa, Guam and others.”

Next up in the line-up is “Feast of Stories” on Saturday, Dec. 1. This evening of ethnic cooking with Eth-Noh-Tec, Olga Loya and Diane Ferlatte — all well-known storytellers — will combine home-made cooking from the quartet along with “tasty tales” in what promises to be a unique, not-to-miss experience.

Rounding out the “25 Live!” series will be “Twenty-Five Lights the Night” on Saturday, Dec. 22, the Winter Solstice. This long night of storytelling will bring together tales of wisdom, humor and much more.

“In many cultures around the world, storytellers weave their stories through the entire night,” said Kikuchi-Yngojo. “The stories begin after the sun has gone down, in the darkness of evening when the spirits are out to help create the magic.”

“We won’t keep you up all night,” adds Wang, “but it will be cozy and it will be magical!”

Already known as artists who have contributed to the Asian American performing arts movement, Wang and Kikuchi-Yngojo founded Eth-Noh-Tec in 1982. Originally named the S.F. Kulintang and later the Kalilang Kulintang Ensemble, in 1990, at the urging of its board of directors, they dissolved the traditional ensemble to concentrate entirely on their artistic venture of fusing the ancient with the contemporary.

Both artistic co-directors, having trained and performed in traditional and contemporary art forms for over two decades, and have since enjoyed tremendous success in this focused fusion, meeting the goals of the name Eth-Noh-Tec: The weaving (tec) together of distinctive cultural elements of the East and West (eth) to create new possibilities (noh).

Eth-Noh-Tec is funded in part by San Francisco Grants for the Arts, W.A. Gerbode Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, NEA, National Storytelling Network, Rainbow Grocery Collective, Target, and Safeway. They have received such awards as National Young Audiences’ Artist of the Year.

The duo reach an audience of more than 250,000 per year, in more than 350 performances at venues across the country and around the globe, including the inaugural celebrations for President Bill Clinton in 1997. Their audiences are multicultural and multigenerational.

Weaving Wang’s background of dance, choreography and theater with Kikuchi-Yngojo’s musical talents, comedic skills and theater experience, this partnership has resulted in a unique form of expression. Whether recounting an age-old folktale or a contemporary statement on modern day issues, they combine art forms of East and West to create a stylized and seamless performance, each artist complementing the other to appear as one.

Eth-Noh-Tec also presents cultural workshops, storytelling programs and original plays. They have recorded four videos, three DVDs and two CDs of Asian folk tales, and are in the process of creating children’s books. Their repertoire of over 100 tales for the young and old includes titles such as “Asian Treasure Bag,” “Asia FantAsia,” “Kids Love Kulintang,” “Bamboo Jamboo” and “Japanese Jamboree.”

Eth-Noh-Tec has also created a number of contemporary works such as “In Need of Goddesses” and the controversial tale of a still-living Bay Area Hiroshima survivor’s journey to forgiveness, “Takashi’s Dream.”

For more information, visit www.ethnohtec.org or call (415) 282–8705.

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