My work stems from my multifaceted identity: mixed race, queer, Native, and ethnically ambiguous. As I navigate the residue of colonization, I am compelled by my identities, cultures, and ancestors to tell stories through dance. In venues where abstraction and whiteness are often prioritized, I feel a responsibility as a Native Hawaiian contemporary dance maker to create work that is legible and relatable to viewers while heightening the visibility of Black, Indigenous & People of Color, and LGBTQIA2S folx. 

 

With a long career in western dance forms, my artistic practice deepened in 2009 with research reconnecting me to my Hawaiian roots. This research emerged in my 2016 work Pōhaku, directly incorporating hula and Hawaiian identity in the work, resulting in greater visibility of contemporary Native dance within the dominant culture. A social and civic impact is made in my work by strategically sharing Hawaiian cultural practices with non-native communities (stone gathering in Pōhaku, lei making in Native Intelligence/Innate Intelligence). My work provokes questions and provides space for authentic native viewpoints and identities to be heard and witnessed.

 

Numerous relationships with composers, musicians, lighting designers, projection designers, visual artists, costume designers, technicians, and Native Hawaiian culture bearers all inform the highly collaborative creative process. The creative process includes development residencies that allow for deep and meaningful exchanges between the collaborators that horizontalize the creative process.

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The work is collaborative.

The work requires research.

The work asks us to be patient.

The works asks us to connect with other humans.

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