Arts for Social Change
"In Hawai'ian culture,PIKO is our belly button where we were connected to our Mothers. We acknowledge our land mass, the mountains as the PIKO of our Earth." Tau
Journey with our special guests ‘Tau’ Peter Rockford Espiritu and Keala Fung of Tau Dance Theater from Hawai'i as we explore our life connection to the earth, the land and its people. Space available for 30 to join the ‘ohana (family) at Timberlodge, Ingleton in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Photo credit: Tau Dance Theater
Hawai'i and Yorkshire Connected
Pōhuli is the term that Tau Dance Theater coined to identify its global-Indigenous dance style that respectfully fuses hula, modern dance and ballet. The creation of a unique hybrid of interculturally-centered practices contributes to the evolutionary movement language of our global village. Oceanic spirituality invoked through our matriarchal connections is a portal allowing us to elevate our conscious practice towards ecological and artistic exploration, while building community, expanding creativity and balancing our health, and wellness.
H-NC residencies provide the immersive time that is so very much needed to increase connections with our inner space, allowing nature healing and providing artistic kinship.
We are nature and land connected, and giving voice to different artistic and cultural languages that each illuminate one another and attend to the intricate interweaving tendrils of our being, opens possibilities for allowing release, healing and creation.
Through light artistic facilitation from Drs. Andrea Maciel and Alex Boyd, non-empty spaces that are full of potential are opened, allowing new horizons to be realised through peer to peer support, attentive listening, and being in congress with our inner and outer landscapes. Professional nature orientated guidance and specialist support from Rob Gale informs our ethnographical knowing of the land, unlocking her historical and ancestral mysteries.
Human-Nature Connect invites artists and practitioners to part-funded outdoor residencies thanks to the Aviva Community Fund. Each residency offers a site specific experience of sharing practice with and within nature while realising 'eco-entangled' (Donna Haraway) life ways that are more sustainable for humans and nature.
Human-Nature Connect extends inclusive social cohesion efforts to the outdoors, promoting arts, health, and climate action.
Human-Nature Connect (H-NC) invites artists and practitioners from across the UK to part-funded outdoor residencies thanks to the Aviva Community Fund. Each residency offers a site specific experience of sharing practice with and within nature while realising 'eco-entangled' (Donna Haraway) life ways that are more sustainable for humans and nature.
"Ingleton - The Land of Waterfalls and Caves"
Ingleton is the site of an ancient Brigantes (Celtic) settlement within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, a place very much associated with water where the rivers Doe and Twiss meet to form the River Lune. With one of Yorkshire's Three Peaks, Ingleborough, on the doorstep, and the limestone landscapes around, Ingleton is a thriving village at the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park for cavers and outdoor specialists.
Established in 1996, Tau Dance Theater (TDT) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) charitable arts organization. Peter Rockford Espiritu is the Executive & Artistic Director of TDT, the only professional dance company based in Honolulu founded by a native Hawaiian.
TDT builds upon a solid foundation of indigenous consciousness, traditions, ceremony, ritual and dance. Its focus is on present day, real time, native identity and spirituality, while supporting responsible evolution and global village awareness through neo-Oceanic fusion, indigenous futurisms, and Niu-Pasefika evolution. This native movement-based viewpoint produces specific artistic images unique to Hawaii’s geographic allocation, Pacific Island and Oceanic culture through storytelling, music and theater, building a platform for native pluralism and inspiring positive wayfinding towards an artistic brown dance footprint. The work upholds cultural identity in the face of globalization and urbanization, functioning as an artistic mirror, reflecting the impact of what Oceania was, has become, and where it is headed.
TDT is a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts – Challenge America Grant recipient supporting Pōhuli - decolonization through codification, developing our own movement identity based on the established techniques of hula, ballet and modern dance to produce a form unique to our own artistic modality and creative voice.
Mr.Espiritu has spent over 30 years directing, choreographing, and teaching globally as a master teacher with a recent focus on dramaturgy for the premiere to the world tour of MINOWÍN in Canada for Vancouver based indigenous company Dancers of Damelahamid. He served as Artistic Director of ECHO - Education for Cultural and Historical Organizations, at the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture & Pacific Studies at the University of South Pacific in Fiji, and the Western Arts Alliance’s Indigenous Roadshow residency.
Mr. Espiritu is a 2022 Western Arts Alliance - Advancing Indigenous Performance - Native Launchpad Fellow and a Dance|USAFellowship to Artists recipient. He has served on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, The Irvine Foundation, Dance America and for more than a decade as a Commissioner for Culture & the Arts for the City and County of Honolulu, spanning four administrations.
Full evening length works of note: Hanau KaMoku: An Island is Born (2002); NAUPAKA: A Hawaiian Opera (2006); POLIAHU: Goddess of Mauna Kea (2009); MOANA: The Rising of the Sea (2015). He is also co-choreographer of the Starlit Hui Show at the Disney Aulani Resort.
Keala Fung's formal training in classical and contemporary ballet span decades, acquiring her Bachelors of Arts in Dance from the University of California, Irvine. Keala's disciplines of dance and movement include latin partner dances, burlesque, swing, aerial dance, Pilates, barre fitness, Yoga and capoeira. She has toured and performed in various Tango, Burlesque, Salsa, and Contemporary dance companies and productions in Los Angeles, Honolulu, NYC, Utah, South Dakota, and Shanghai. She currently dances for Tau Dance Theater and serves as the Outreach coordinator for the company while teaching, performing burlesque with Honolulu’s Cherry Blossom Cabaret. Traditionally, Keala's hula and ('oli) chant explorations started from a three month native Hawaiian encampment as protest on the sacred mountain of Mauna Kea and continues with the Kanakaole family who trace their family lineage to the goddess Pele of the volcano. Keala is a major contributor to the bi-coatstal dance company (New York City/Hawaii), Dancers Unlimited as its Hawaii coordinator who's current focus is on Edible Tales centering on Native Hawaiian wisdom and stories about food and ʻāina (land) into community-centered dance exploration, actions and solutions leveraging movement explorations as a way for the participants to process hands-on learning and land stewardship in a transformative way.
