Offerings for Intergenerational Healing and Re-Matriation
Roots and Radiance: Queer Connections and Cultural Healing 2024
photo by Ify Okolie
Medicine Bundle Offerings
As an interdisciplinary creator, and liberation advocate, KeAloha opens portals to intergenerational healing and inter-cultural solidarity. KeAloha anchors their practice in Aloha ʻĀina ~ love for the land, the people of the land, and all that exists in harmony.
KeAloha works with communities, groups, and individuals to empower Re-Matriation efforts; and invites collaborators to meet them at an inclusive Pace of Disability.
PERFORMANCE | Dance & Music
An original recording and performing MUSIC artist, and a diversely rooted DANCE artist; KeAloha beams joy as they tell stories through movement and music.
I. Original Music
KeAloha has performed their music on stages across Turtle Island, including Vancouver and Ottawa International Jazz Festivals, and within local circles like Guilt & Company, Vines Festival, and Two Rivers Remix Festival.
II. Hawaiian and Tahitian Hula
KeAloha was a baby in a basket as their Mama and big siblings danced hulas for community. They continued on to study western studio styles such as ballet, jazz, tap, and contemporary. KeAloha has always felt most at home when they are sharing the art of shapeshifting in rhythm.
III. Pow Wow
Initiated into the Pow Wow Circle in 2022, KeAloha dances in ceremony and celebration at traditional and competition Pow Wows. They share Native Hoop, Jingle, and Fancy Shawl dances in community-organized spaces, schools, and beyond ~ amplifying Indigenous resurgence and pride.
WORKSHOPS & TEACHINGS
KeAloha humbly facilitates teaching and learning in circle. The most valuable spaces of expansion in their life have been those where mentors and community leaders have seen the curiousity within them, and found creative ways to nurture joy, courage, and offer meaningful resourcing.
KeAloha fosters liberating, decolonial learning for all ages by centring Indigenous wisdoms, resilience, wellness, histories, and future dreams.
KeAloha offers experiential, emotional, mindful, and somatic learning centred in:
I. Songwriting,
II. Pow Wow Movement,
III. Hawaiian Hula Foundations,
IV. Rhythm and Harmony, and
V. Disability Inclusion.
STORYTELLING & ADVOCACY: Disability, Two Spirit, and Liberation Justice
Since they were five years old - fiercely advocating against the anti-Indigenous colonial court system - to trailblazing spaces for disabled Indigifemme artists in the colonial-capital music industry, KeAloha's heart compass centres making space for intersectionally underserved and oppressed communities.
KeAloha's lineages as a 2SIQ (Two Spirit IndigiQueer), Chronically Ill and Disabled, and Neurodivergent person have taught them the magic of shapeshifting again and again. They have learned to harness their grief and wisdom towards creating more space for people who face intersectional barriers to accessing wellness, belonging, culture, and community identity.
KeAloha is passionate about storytelling and sharing knowledge that advocates for greater inclusion, equity, and care for Queer and Disabled kin. KeAloha sees shared struggle for resurgence and liberation in Black and Indigenous kin globally, and believes in mobilizing until we are ALL free. KeAloha sees that our most marginalized community members are those with such immense medicine that deserves to be held, seen, and honoured.
Dance is Medicine
KeAloha Browne is a mixed-IndigiQueer artist with chronic illness disability. Belonging to Lheidli T’enneh Nation - the people where the two rivers flow together - KeAloha has been taught by the medicine of water and movement since they were small.
KeAloha’s name carries the mana of their Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) kupuna (ancestors); their seed as an artist was planted on day one: learning hulas from their Mom, who learned from her father. KeAloha initiated into Pow Wow teachings in 2022, in Kehewin Cree Nation, where they were blessed to begin practicing Native Hoop, Jingle Dress, and Fancy Shawl traditions.
As the youngest of three siblings raised by their Mama - Nani Browne, KeAloha knows the magic of making somethings-from-nothings. In Native Hoop Dance, KeAloha opens portals to Indigenous Futurisms. Through immobilizing flare ups and tender returns, KeAloha has been dancing Hoop, Jingle Dress, and Fancy Shawl at local family pow wow nights
KeAloha dances in prayer for the liberation of ALL occupied Nations, from Turtle Island to Palestine, from Hawai’i to Congo. KeAloha reveres the revolutionary healing of Pow Wow ~ honouring the medicine and resilience of our ancestors and babies.
"I consider the how to remain in connection with my Kanaka Maoli kupuna, no matter the distance, and honour the legacy of hula.
I consider the kuleana in joining the original Pow Wow Nations (including the Cree, Blackfoot, Ojibway, and Dakota), as a mixed Dakelh kid from Lheidli T’enneh.
The gathering, healing, and resurgence of our unique Indigenous identities in ceremony and celebration empowers me to dream: what more? How else can we move for our Right Return?"
Music is Medicine
KeAloha began playing the drum set at 12 years old. 7 years later, they had the privilege of studying Black American Music, obtaining a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance as a Drum Set major. In 2019 they were selected nation-wide to be the drummer of the Ottawa International Jazz Festival's Youth Jazz Summit. Their path as a session player in the "Vancouver" music scene has led them to perform and support artists from Teon Gibbs, Francis Arevalo, Breaking Boundaries; alongside forming original bands Sweetz and Cumbia Galera; and share stages from the Orpheum, to the Wisehall, to Shipyards Festival, to Guilt & Company.
In 2021, KeAloha began their original music project under their own name, and rose to CBC Searchlight's Top 100 with their single, "Mama's Hands". They later released "Mahina", which gained support as #13 on the Indigenous Music Countdown.
KeAloha's journey as a musician and performer has been shaped by the pace of disability, in essence: decolonizing the demands of the "music industry". They have been crafting their debut album, "Pieces of Who I Am" for the past 3 years; a soundtrack for the revolution and resurgence of Indigenous youth, globally, During this time of witnessing live-streamed genocides for the first time in history. KeAloha is determined to offer medicine for the way forward in every element of creation.
LIVE PERFORMANCES
MUSIC VIDEOS
Upcoming Shows
"I’ve gone through lots of adaptations as I’ve explored living with chronic illness and learnt about how dance would have to show up differently in my life at certain times, which ended up giving more space for starting my own original music project.My music project is about telling stories and fuelling Indigenous resurgence. "
Press.
Let's Create Together
KeAloha offers music, dance, teachings, and speaking engagements in communities of all ages and ancestries, to mobilize for Indigenous Rematriation and foster inter-culteral, intergenerational healing.
We encourage you to reach out at least 2 months in advance of your gathering to support accessibility, relationship building, and well-tended details for all collaborators involved.