UC RIVERSIDE DANCE DEPT. VIRTUAL WORKSHOP
Elements of Physical and Performance Theory in Hawaiian Cultural Choreography.
The coordination of a performer's physicality is grounded in the choreography, the venue, and the accompaniment. Each feature of a production and performance experience adds richness to the senses, and depth to the impressions in the minds of an audience. Physicality is unique as a performing artist's tool - it translates inspiration or observation into movement, which accumulates into a choreographic structure, and then (with any luck) into a spectacle worthy of an audience's applause. Like most tools, the utility of our physicality is improved when we - the performers - understand and accept how to care for and maintain it properly. Absent this awareness, physicality - like any tool - can lose its inherent potential to get the work done. When this occurs, performers can lose their performance identity, and entire productions can suffer.
In Hawaiian dance (hula), awareness of natural physicality and its vast potential to tell a meaningful story was perfected over innumerable generations of productions and performers, stretching back to the time of Christ. Movement sets which characterize and distinguish hula from other dance tropes and types, both in musicality and performance, were as much a language and legitimate means of personal expression to native Hawaiians as the spoken word. In this workshop, participants will be led through a series of prompts, reflections, and thought experiments designed to augment their overall physicality awareness, integrating those awarenesses into distinct movement sets, while approximating some of the unique aspects and endemic considerations of choreographing from/for/within a Hawaiian perspective.
Sign up for this virtual workshop at The Pasion Performance Group
Mark Mauikānehoalani Lovell is a native Hawaiian educator, cultural practitioner, and independent consultant with a particular focus on issues of Hawaiian identity, economics, and politics. He is a graduate of the University of Hawaii and University College London, having also earned certificates at the London School of Economics. Mark was trained in Hawaiian dance (hula), chant, and oratory ('oli'oli) by renown Kumu Hula Tony Conjugacion, celestial orienteering (hōku ho'ohele) from Hawaiian navigator and '83 Hokule'a crewman Kumu Richard Tai Crouch, as well as tattoo symbology (ki’i kakau uhi) from master tattooist, Kahuna Ka Uhi, Keone Nunes, among other disciplines.
He is a founding partner of KAIROU Waterman, an artisan design and cultural consultation firm based in Honolulu, Hawai'i. Mark has devoted his career to promoting authentic Hawaiian culture and immersive cultural interaction, including rare perspectives and timeless philosophies endemic to native Hawaiian culture.
