#8x8_shangrila_21 Performing Artists
My Body is Your Shrine; Aayat - Sacred Sign
Mughal Gallery
During a year marked by great loss, Bhatawadekar performs a graceful and intimate dance in the Mughal Gallery, a choreography exploring the place where we hold the memories of people we hold dear.
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Sai Bhatewadekar is an Associate Professor and Director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa whose research brings together German and South Asian Studies, Philosophy and Religious Studies, and Cross-Cultural and Comparative Studies. Her expertise includes Bollywood dance, music, analysis, and history. Bhatawadekar received the University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents' Medal for Excellence in Teaching.
A Matter of Place
Textile Gallery
In and around the Textile Gallery, dancer Carr-Brown bravely explores how historically marginalized people navigate and resist oppressive systems. While the artist uses her own experiences with bigotry as a starting point for the piece, the viewer is treated to a cathartic journey of healing and transcendence.
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Sequoia Carr-Brown is a performance artist, speaker, and founder of the creative arts company, StRaNgE FrUiT XPrEsS. Her award-winning group strives to empower communities through engaging, educational mixed-media performances, and workshops. Certified in the DanceAbility method, Carr-Brown is creative dance director at Honolulu Broadway Babies and J.E.T.H Continuing Education School. She is a company dancer with Ginko Marischino, Jhalak Dance, Ramm Dance Company, and the recently cofounded Piko Dance Arts.
Black Prevailage; The Roads Ch.1; Bloody World
Living Room
In this soulful work performed in the Living Room and on the Upper Lawn, hip hop artist and scholar, Cross, offers a deep meditation on blackness and place at Shangri La--a museum originally designed as a home--asking if it is possible to discover a place where blackness can feel at home.
Written and performed by KeithCross
Beat programming and engineering by Scott Ohtoro
Mixed by David Pichard
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Keith Cross aka Doctabarz is a veteran hip-hop artist, singer-songwriter, educator, and scholar. He earned his doctorate from Stanford University Graduate School of Education specializing in race, inequality, and language in education. Cross is currently an Assistant Professor of Multilingual and Multicultural Education at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa where he utilizes rap lyricism as a tool to enhance mental and social well-being.
Poets and Art Makers; Importance of Poetry Represented on Artistic Treasures
Private Garden
Beginning in the Private Garden, joyful in spirit and grounded in the generosity of his Iranian heritage, Ganjali shares the ways in which Shangri La--with its rich collection of cultural resources--is a place of inspiration and discovery.
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Maseeh Ganjali is a theatre actor and photographer. He holds an MFA in Asian Theatre from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and has worked in the U.S., Iran, and China. Ganjali is the recipient of seven Po’okela Awards from Hawaiʻi State Theatre Council, an Outstanding Production Award at the 16th Mobarak International Puppet Festival, three Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute Fellowships, two awards of excellence in Asian Theatre, a graduate service award from the University of Hawaiʻi, and a research award from University of Hawaiʻi Honors Program.
ʻĀpapa Kūpikipikiʻō; After the Birthday Party; The Children Beneath the Wall
Ottoman Gallery
Within the Ottoman Gallery, Goods--one of Hawaii’s most gifted storytellers--recounts and dramatizes a series of captivating tales that came to him during his engagements with Shangri La, revealing the layered meanings of this place.
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Moses Goods is an actor, storyteller, and playwright rooted in Native Hawaiian culture. Goods is the founder and artistic director of ʻInamona Theatre Company, an organization dedicated to reintroducing the native stories of Hawaiʻi to the community. Currently, Goods appears in “Duke”, a one-man show portraying the life of Olympic gold medalist and father of modern surfing Duke Kahanamoku, and performs hula with Halau Mohala ‘Ilima.
Breathe
Foyer
Against the backdrop of jali and the rich visual culture of Islamic art on display in Shangri La’s Foyer, a regal Kahnma sings about a sense of place that offers comfort and compassion to all who accept the invitation to sit within it. Written and performed with Hank González.
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Kahnma Karnga a dynamic singer and songwriter with Oahu-based music groups the West African Dance Band, Jamarek, and the newly formed African pop band, The Kahnma Experience. Karnga uses her musical artwork to connect across cultural and racial divides.
Kino بدن ; Kilo
Mihrab Hallway
Poignant and arresting, Lanzilotti’s multifaceted composition amplifies and resonates with the intricacies and magnificence of the Mihrab Hallway, creating a sacred place for her work and the art of #8x8_shangrila artist, Portner, which opens the video and shares the space.
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Nāwāhineokalaʻi Lanzilotti is an educator and multi-media performer who focuses on decolonization and contemporary indigenous art. Her collaborations throughout the Asia-Pacific aim to engage diverse communities by employing the spoken word, movement, sound, and video projection. Lanzilotti is a haumana of the current papa kahiko of Hālau Hula O Maiki in Mānoa.
Kūpikipikiʻō; Resist; Makawalu; ʻĀina Hānau
Manuscript Gallery
Across from the Manuscript Gallery, poet and Indigenous studies scholar McDougall recites a series of bold calls to action asserting a kānaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) sense of place emerging from Shangri La, linking genealogies and cosmologies of empowerment and connection.
Scroll to the end of the page to read the artist’s statement about the performance.
Brandy Nālani McDougall is a poet and educator who weaves the Hawaiian language with English to create a complex, bilingual texture. She earned her MFA from the University of Oregon and is a PhD candidate at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where she currently teaches. She is the author of The Salt-Wind / Ka Makani Pa‘akai (2008) and the scholarly monograph Finding Meaning: Kaona and Contemporary Hawaiian Literature (2016).
