IN PRACTICE: Māhealani Uchiyama
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by SIMA BELMAR
SB: So early on you developed an embodied ethnographic sensibility. MU: Yes, which led me to be interested in different histories and geographies. Why do we have all these different, fascinating, beau- tiful ways of saying the same things? So that led me to dance ethnology. There were two programs I was aware of, one at UCLA and the other at the University of Hawai’i. SB: Why did you choose to move 6000 rather than 3000 miles from home? How did your family feel about that? MU: I really wanted to study hula in Hawai ’ i. I had started taking hula lessons at the age of 13. In DC, each state had their own State Society, where families of people who served in the government got together to promote what’s unique and wonderful about their state. 2 My mom contacted the Hawai ’ i State Society and they put us in touch with people who taught hula and Tahitian dance. I got really fascinated by it. MU: It was a mixed bag. It’s incredibly beau- tiful, and I did find a lot of wonderful friends and a whole different sensibility of how to be in the world. I also found a lot of people, outside the university context, who made it clear that they did not have a very high regard for African-American people. I was not in the military, or on the basketball or volley ball team, so some people just couldn’t grasp that I was there as a regular student. I was there really by myself, no family, and no discernible black community in Honolulu at that time. I felt very alone, but I was also determined to graduate before I left. SB: What made you leave? MU: The whole reason I went to Hawai’i was that I wanted to dance hula, and I wanted to explore different ways of being in the world through movement. In addition to hula, and as part of my degree requirements as a Dance Ethno student, I took classes in everything that department offered in those SB: What did you find when you got to Hawai’i years—Filipino, Okinawan, Korean, Javanese, Mohiniyattam. Additional experiences included playing in the university's Javanese gamelan, and receiving instruction in South Indian classical singing. When I first moved to Hawai’i as a naïve and innocent young woman, I just wanted to dance and to be a part of that place. Over time it became clear that there were certain things that at least at that time, were not likely to be possible for me to achieve in terms of finding a sense of “home”. In addition, as both my husband and I were teachers, it felt very unlikely that we would ever be able to buy a home there. SB: At least you got to the Bay Area in time to do that. MU: Barely! SB: What did you find when you arrived in the Bay Area? MU: When I first came here I was amazed at how big and active the Polynesian dance community was (and still is).
SB: Was it easier to integrate with the Polynesian community in exile? How were you received by that community? MU: In those years, many people were very welcoming. However, there were also those who were like, “what are you doing speaking Hawaiian?” There were some who couldn’t get past the misconceptions of what they thought my phenotype represented. Fortu- nately, when I arrived a friend introduced me to Uncle Joseph Kaha'ulelio, a renowned kumu hula who was teaching in Hayward. I studied intensely with him for several years, and danced in competitions and events all over the Bay Area. I found complete acceptance with him, something I had never experienced in full before. MU: I’ve always tried to adhere to the tra- ditional expression and to honor it. As a kumu, one of my jobs is to innovate and create in ways that honor and draw from a wellspring that was passed on to me by my kumu. Walking that fine line has always been the challenge. It is vital to fully understand every aspect of what we are doing as a teacher of this tradition, (the music, the narrative, the regalia, and of course the movement sequences) and simultaneously to create something that’s beautiful and consistent with tradition, yet something unique that hasn’t been seen before. First and foremost in preparing a hula is the narrative. Hula is a logogenic art form. So, in the absence of a poem or a prayer, there’s no hula. Dancers have to be trained so that the movement becomes a part of their DNA in order to make it possible to express this narrative through their body. A kumu must have a clear understand- ing of how to clothe the dancers, because every single item worn, its color, design and materials has to be in accordance with and expressive of the meaning of the dance that is being presented at the time. Even how a dancer wears their hair must be attended to in detail, as must how much make-up SB: Describe your process of creating hula performance works.
THIS MONTH the Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance celebrates its 25th anni- versary. And although no institution, espe- cially an arts institution, makes it to 25 years without the toil and TLC of scores of indi- viduals, the Center owes its energy and lon- gevity to the passionate expertise of founder, artistic director, and kumu hula (master hula teacher) Mahealani Uchiyama. Uchiyama was born in Washington DC. She arrived in the Bay Area by way of Hono- lulu in 1982, with an undergraduate degree in Dance Ethnology 1 and a master’s degree in Pacific Islands Studies from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. In 1993, after teaching hula at Chabot College in Hayward, Laney College in Oakland, and at private dance studios she rented throughout the East Bay, she established her dance center on Heinz Avenue in Berkeley and founded her current performing company, Halau Ka Ua Tuahine. In addition to Hawaiian and Tahitian dance, the school has brought together instructors of the dance and music of Bali, the Middle East, India, China, Congo, Central Asia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, to name a few. This month's anniversary gala and performance will reflect that diversity. Uchiyama explains that the Center is a place where “non-Western forms can be explored regardless of an individual's background and ethnicity, as long as they are willing to do so in a spirit of profound respect. This is the place for all of us, a place to feel at home exploring spiritual and artistic connections.” The theme of finding home—in a geographic place, a body, a dance form—recurs throughout our interview. Uchiyama had just completed her first sea- son as co-director (with Patrick Makuakane and Latanya Tigner) of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and was taking a breath before launching preparations for the anniversary performance when we spoke in her Oakland home on July 26. Sima Belmar: How did an African American woman born in DC at the height of the Civil Rights Movement become a kumu hula? Māhealani Uchiyama: My mom, who had grown up in the Jim Crow South and migrated north, was determined to provide access to all the things that she had wished for as a little girl but couldn't have. She enrolled me in the Bernice Hammond School of Dance, a black owned business and the only dance school in the District of Colum- bia that would accept black children. I was there for nine years, from the age of two and a half until I was almost 11, at which point I was old enough to notice that I was not seeing any ballerinas who looked like me in terms of height (I was already 5'11") and race. Even so, with everything that was going on in the world at that time, dance made it possible for me to feel some sense of self- worth and hope. I knew that I didn’t want to give up dancing but if I kept doing that style of dance there wouldn’t have been any future for me that I could see. My mom also got me into one of the very few if not the only elementary school in DC that was integrated. I was the only black child, but I was there with children of ambassadors and children of the house- keepers of those ambassadors, so there were kids from all over the world. From the 5th grade on my sense of the world expanded dramatically compared to what it would have been had I continued to only experi- ence life within my own neighborhood. So all of this started me thinking: Why do people move the way they move? I was fascinated with different people’s ways of expressing themselves through movement. I also loved being exposed to different lan- guages, music, and food.
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ON THIS PAGE / In Practice:
Māhealani Uchiyama by Sima Belmar 4 / Find Time and Space with Residency Programs by Mina Rios 6 / September Performance Calendar 8 / FACT/SF’s Festive and Funereal 10th Anniversary by Claudia Bauer 10 / Unleashing Dance's Potential by Nancy Ng 11 / Did You Know? Khala Brannigan 12 / Parangal Dance Company on the Road to Payadon by Rob Taylor
Māhealani Uchiyama / photo by Bonnie Kamin
2 in dance SEP 2018
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