| Dalani Tanahy | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 22, 1961  San Diego |
| Occupation | Textile artist |
Dalani Tanahy (born July 22, 1961) is an American artist specializing in the Hawaiian art of creating kapa, fabric made by beating bark. Tanahy creates kapa for artistic and ceremonial purposes and teaches courses and workshops. She is the founder of Kapa Hawaii, an organization dedicated to reviving and preserving the art of kapa creation.
Dalani Kaye Prager was born on July 22, 1961. [1] She was born and raised in San Diego, California, with a Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Caucasian ethnic background. [1] Her maternal grandparents lived in La’ie, O’ahu and she spent summers visiting them as a child. [2] Tanahy moved to Oahu after finishing high school in 1979 and has lived in Mākaha since 1986. [3]
Tanahy was inspired to learn the art of creating kapa by taking a course from kumu hula (hula teacher) Kawai Aona-Ueoka, motivating her to spend many years discovering techniques by trial and error. [4] [3] Tanahy later worked as a kapa teacher for fourth graders at the Cultural Learning Center at Kaala. [3] She went on to found an organization, Kapa Hawaii, to educate children and adults about the types of tapa (Polynesian barkcloth), specifically the Hawaiian variation, kapa. [5] Along with other kumu (expert teachers), Tanahy works to revive the tradition of kapa through research, experimentation, and sharing knowledge through workshops and classes. [6]
She is involved in each step of crafting kapa, including growing both the wauke (paper mulberry) used as cloth fibers and the native plants used to dye the cloth, as well as carving her own hōhoa, the kapa beaters used to crush the plant fibers. [7] [3]
Tanahy's work has been exhibited by the Bishop Museum, the British Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. [8] She was awarded a 2015 Native Hawaiian Artist Fellowship by the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Polynesian Cultural Center. [8] In 2018 she served as the inaugural Master Kumu for the Hawaiian-Pacific Studies program at University of Hawaiʻi – West Oʻahu. [9]
Hula is a Polynesian dance form accompanied by chant (Oli) or song. It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Polynesians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visual dance form.
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Winona Kapuailohiamanonokalani Desha Beamer was a champion of authentic and ancient Hawaiian culture, publishing many books, musical scores, as well as audio and video recordings on the subject. In her home state, she was known as Auntie Nona. She was an early proponent of the ancient form of the hula being perpetuated through teaching and public performances. Beamer was the granddaughter of Helen Desha Beamer. A cousin to Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame inductee Mahi Beamer, she teamed with him and her son Keola to form a touring North American troupe performing ancient hula and the Hawaiian art of storytelling. She was a teacher at Kamehameha Schools for almost 40 years, but had been expelled from that same school as a student in 1937 for dancing the standing hula. Beamer's sons Keola and Kapono are established performers in the Hawaiian music scene. Her grandson Kamanamaikalani Beamer is a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and CEO of the Kohala Center. She ran a Waikiki hula studio for three decades. In 1997—indignant at proposals to cut Hawaiian curriculum from Kamehameha Schools—Beamer became the catalyst for public protest and legal investigation into Bishop Estate management, which eventually led to the removal or resignation of the trustees.
Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, also known as Kumu Hina, is a Native Hawaiian māhū – a traditional third gender person who occupies "a place in the middle" between male and female – as well as a modern transgender woman. She is known for her work as a kumu hula, as a filmmaker, and as a community leader in the field of Kanaka Maoli language and cultural preservation. She teaches Kanaka Maoli philosophy and traditions and promotes cross-cultural alliances throughout the Pacific Islands. Described as a "powerful performer with a clear, strong voice", she has been hailed as "a cultural icon".
"Auntie" Alice Kuʻuleialohapoʻinaʻole Kanakaoluna Nāmakelua (1892–1987) was a Hawaiian composer and performer. Nāmakelua was also a kumu hula dancer and lei-maker. She was an expert performer of the slack-key guitar and a master of the Hawaiian language. Nāmakelua was a mentor of other musicians and wrote around 180 songs of her own. She was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 2011.
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Bernice A. Akamine is an American artist and Hawaiian rights activist. Her visual art has taken multiple forms, including glass and feathers, and she teaches traditional Hawaiian art techniques such as the creation of kapa cloth and natural dyeing using Hawaiian plants. Akamine is an advocate for Indigenous land rights, using her artwork to bring attention to the colonial invasion of Hawaii and its continued effects on the native Hawaiian population.
Greta Mae "Puanani" Kanemura Van Dorpe (1933–2014) was an American artist and master of kapa, the Hawaiian art of making cloth from bark fibers. Van Dorpe spent more than forty years researching the forgotten craft of making kapa, investigating the tools and materials used by ancient Hawaiians and experimenting to replicate the cloth. She has been credited as one of the women responsible for reviving the art of kapa in the 1970s.
Mary "Aunty Malia" Blanchard Solomon was an American textile artist and expert on Hawaiian customs, crafts, and culture. Solomon researched and traveled across the South Pacific to regain lost knowledge about kapa, the traditional Hawaiian craft of making cloth from the fibers of trees. The Chicago Tribune called Solomon one of Hawaii's "foremost amateur anthropologist/historians."