Backstory

Dear dreamer,

I love the image of a spiral to represent the ways we continually circle back to certain themes throughout our lives, gaining a slightly new perspective with each revolution. The creative renaissance I currently find myself in is of course one of my own lifetime spirals. Iʻd like to tell you a bit about how its most recent curve began, or the last time I found myself at the spot that Iʻm now returning to.

In the year 2020, as a dancer and performer, I was looking around and finding my world lacking. In the face of George Floydʻs murder and a global pandemic, the programming at the community theater I worked at certainly didnʻt matter to me anymore. I donʻt know that any example of art being made at that time would have felt appropriate or satisfactory to me as a response to that moment–especially given the circumstances of not being able to gather for in-person performances. Somatics felt like an inaccessible, white-washed field. My own creative practice was only reaching a small audience. So I was seeking a way to act in the world that would more directly impact things for the better.

I actually found my answer in Hawai‘i Peopleʻs Fund, whose mission is to support, fund, and amplify the work of Hawai‘i-based grassroots organizations challenging systems of oppression. I quickly discovered that almost any non-profit organization doing super cool change work in Hawai‘i has benefitted or been in community with Hawai‘i Peopleʻs Fund in some way over the past 51 years. Many now-“household names” such as Ma‘o Organic Farms and Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana got their first grants from HPF.

I began giving to HPF, and galvanizing others to do the same–moving money directly to the kind of alternative world-building projects in Hawai‘i that offered me a sense of hope. And over the years, I found myself embedded in an incredibly vibrant and inspiring, direct-action-oriented, culturally rooted community.

And still, itʻs funny how the past few years of heavy involvement within Hawai‘iʻs social change community has led me right back around to find that actually, we (and our movements for change) desperately need to return to our bodies. There is no substantial power being built if we constantly deny, override, and seek to tame or control our own bodies in the process of saving the world. Put differently, how can we really be creating an alternate world if we are moving from habitual embodiments of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy every step of the way? These embodiments are sneaky and often unnoticed in our fast-paced world. In my forthcoming messages, I hope to elaborate on some ideas Iʻm marinating on around this topic, drawing from learnings through my dream practice and a recent somatic trauma healing conference I attended. You are the primary audience for my real-time processing of these insights Iʻve been collecting.
Thank you for being here.

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