Anthony Aiu | 2022 Native Launchpad Artist

ARTIST WEBSITE

Tribal Affiliation: Tagata Pasifika (Samoa, Hawai’i)

Artistic Discipline: Multidisciplinary — dance, traditional Polynesian cultural arts

Location//hometown: O’ahu, HI // Brooklyn, NY

Anthony Aiu, born and raised in O'ahu, received his Bachelor’s degree in Dance from Brigham Young University-Provo, receiving honors for outstanding choreography and exceptional research. He has performed and toured both nationally and internationally with the university’s top modern/contemporary and world dance companies. Anthony also studied at China’s world-renowned Beijing Dance Academy. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, SUNY in May of 2013. While there, he co-authored A Choreographic Workbook with his mentor, Professor Kazuko Hirabayashi.

Anthony has performed and taught master classes and workshops throughout Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. He has worked extensively with young children and teenagers through dance camps, lecture demonstration tours, concerts, workshops, and in choreographing musicals. Some of his theater credits include Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Working, and Romeo & Juliet. His Peer Modern Suite was commissioned by Kinnect, a modern dance group with a dance education focus, and performed in dozens of schools throughout New York and Utah.

He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Dance `Avei`a, a contemporary dance theater that showcases his culturally rooted movement style, and has choreographed over 25 works for the company, including Vari, Ura, Pape, Mata'i, and Moana Nui. A primary focus and area of choreographic interest and research, as well as technique development, lies in his dedication to further developing a dance form and approach to technical training that draws on his rich Polynesian ancestry, to augment the world of dance, and to give voice to the underrepresented people of the Polynesian islands in mainstream and concert dance settings. His works have been showcased by the LABA Theater NYC, Green Space, Dixon Place, The 92nd Street Y, The Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, Dance Parade NYC, Steppin’ Out Studios, Brooklyn Ballet, 60x60 Dance, and at several festivals throughout the tri-state area.

Anthony has performed in several works by notable choreographers including: Maurice Bejart's Bolero, Paul Taylor's Esplanade, Merce Cunningham's Scramble, Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo & Juliet, Duo by Armando Duarte, Flight by Takehiro Ueyama, Marius Paetipa’s Don Quixote, and A Baited Soul by Kazuko Hirabayashi. Anthony completed his fifth spring season with American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera House in 2013, and is a guest artist with Keystone Dance and Ballet Arts. He has conducted a dance residency in Tahiti, working with Choreographer Jean-Marie Biret, creating a contemporary Tahitian dance production depicting The Legend of Maui, for the country’s National Heiva, a large-scale cultural dance event encompassing all regions of French Polynesia.

Anthony is co-founder of the Tahitian Dance Group Te Ao Mana, and works on the Global Harmony Project, an initiative to bring communities together through the creative process.