Native Lauchpad Artist Spotlights
Checking in with the 2022 Native Launchpad Cohort
Native Launchpad is the cornerstone program of Advancing Indigenous Performance (AIP), WAA’s national initiative to create new touring and presentation opportunities for US-based Indigenous performing artists.
Applications for the 2023 cycle of Native Launchpad open on December 6; join us that day for an informational webinar including application guidance, noon - 1pm PT. In the meantime, we caught up with the 2022 cohort to see what they’ve been working on.
Anthony Aiu
Anthony Aiu
Anthony Aiu is a Brooklyn-based artist, dancer, and choreographer from O’ahu, Hawai’i. He is the Founder & Artistic Director of contemporary dance theater,`Avei`and co-founder of the Tahitian dance group, Te Ao Mana.
About Anthony’s practice
My work spans the traditional and contemporary cultural dance spectrum, creating space and representation for Pacific Island artists.
There is a plethora of material and deep cultural knowledge that has yet to be explored and developed into movement-based Indigenous storytelling. It is exciting to think of all the stories awaiting their time in the light. My Pacific heritage is profoundly rich and uniquely intertwined with the natural world. Part of my responsibility as a cultural bearer and creator is to breathe new life into the vast collection of inspiring words and profound knowledge that is Pacific Island ancestry and heritage.
In our world view, all are connected, though our upbringing and life experience reveals different tints and shades. Mine is but one lens in the vast ocean of artists and multidisciplinary Pacific Island offering. I hope people are able to connect to the themes I present, deepen their relationship to self and others in their various environments, and the natural world as they engage with my work.
Mana Manahata event in New York
What Anthony is currently working on
Te Ao Mana just completed Mana Manahata, in conjunction with Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration in New York. The 24-hour lineup included Indigenous ceremony, artistry, activism, poetry, tradition, song and dance, performance, competition, and love.
The next major event we are preparing for is Heiva Pasifika NYC 2023 — a festival celebrating Pacific Island artistry and innovation, featuring performances, vendors, fashion designers, and an Ori Tahiti competition. There is a lot of anticipation and excitement brewing! We are always open to partnerships, sponsorship, and funding opportunities to assist us in making this unique, magical event a reality. Visit the website to learn about how you can contribute to the festivities.
Finally, one of my dreams is to develop and produce another evening-length work. I have a working title for the project — Manaiakalani (Come From Heaven) — which demonstrates the cyclical nature of life as understood by Polynesian tradition, through a multi-faceted, semi interactive performance experience. You can see an excerpt here.
Tau — Peter Rockford Espiritu
Tau — Peter Rockford Espiritu is the Executive & Artistic Director of Tau Dance Theater (TDT), the only professional dance company based in Honolulu founded by a native Hawaiian.
About Tau’s practice
From Tau’s residency at Banff, 2022; image credit: David Sweeney
I manifest safe and creative spaces for ‘Brown Dance’ culture and the arts to thrive and grow equally in traditional and contemporary expressions.
My focus centers on Indigenous identities and voices in a moving dialogue, addressing current local issues of urbanization and globalization. I plan to continue my journey towards articulating Pōhuli — Indigenization through the creation of my own movement modality and vocabulary, reformed into the foundation of a new movement language paradigm.
My work creates bridges that form connections, rebuilding healthy communities where currently there are fracture lines. I draw upon those experiences to connect communities-within-communities, bringing people who feel divided or marginalized closer together.
What Tau is currently working on
From Tau’s residency at Banff, 2022; image credit: David Sweeney
A new solo work entitled Hāloa — the result of a three-week fully funded residency at the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity in Canada, debuting on December 7 at Hawaii Theatre.
The retelling of Mo'olelo (stories) supporting native Hawaiian and Oceania oral traditions in the now, Hāloa speaks to the birth of Kalo, the first man. Kalo has deep history and cultural significance to the native Hawaiian as the source of life, and speaks to origins, our connection to land, the gods, sustainability and food security.
The performance — which will serve as the foundation for the creation of a larger work — will include special guest and 2020 Native Launchpad artist, Charly Lowry.
Earlier this month, I was awarded a 2022 Dance/USA Artist Fellowship, which funds movement-based artists with sustained practices in art for social change.
James Pakootas
James Pakootas
Multi-award winning artist, producer, and filmmaker James Pakootas — otherwise known as “Just Jamez” — is the co-founder of New Age Warriors, L.L.C. — an organization specializing in community engagement through workshops, talking circles, live performances, keynote speeches, and residency programs with a focus on youth.
Multi-award winning artist, producer, and filmmakerJames Pakootas — otherwise known as “Just Jamez” — is a modern-day story weaver who cultivates change in the world through the power of words.
About James’s Practice
I tell stories — stories that empower, stories that fascinate, and stories that speak truth to our existence. The core of my content speaks to resilience, a deep understanding of trauma, and connection; the seemingly never-ending pathway back to ourselves.
As well as popular music, my earliest artistic foundations come from the winter dances of my Tribe, the gospel hymns of my mother’s family, and as a jazz percussionist. Pulling from my roots and the cultural roots of hip hop, I create melodic verses and beats that incorporate various styles from jazz, to rhythm & blues, to contemporary pow-wow singing, to classical soul.
When I create music and film, my focus is collaboration and team building — an extension of our cultural value of unified action. Increasingly over the past year, I’ve been immersed in interdisciplinary work as a founding member of an artist collective based out of the Pacific Northwest incorporating live music, dance, film, and poetry. With a focus on working with Indigenous and POC artists, I see this work as community building and the best way to bring forth authentic performance — storytelling at its best.
James Pakootas and Maura Garcia, Horizons music video
What James is currently working on
I'm at The Native American Music Awards as a two-time nominee for Best Collaboration, one of which is for Horizons, my collaboration with 2019 Native Launchpad artist, Maura Garcia.
Maura and I shot, edited, and completed this video in between sessions of the virtual 2020 AIP Symposium.
Over the past year, I’ve been immersed in interdisciplinary work as a founding member of an artist collective based out of the Pacific Northwest incorporating live music, dance, film, and poetry.
Javier Stell-Fresquéz
Javier Stell-Fresquez is a multidisciplinary dance and performance artist, with extensive experience managing non-profit programs and producing festivals.
Javier Stell-Fresquéz, Mother the Verb
About Javier’s practice
Having performed all my life, my experience ranges from vogue to flamenco, folklórico Mexicano, to many styles of social partner dancing. My creative practice is rooted in the teachings of Cherrie Moraga (Queer Xicanx playwright); Guillermo Gomez-Peña, and Contemporary Indigenous Dance approaches learned through various collaborations.
What Javier is currently working on
I have been re-awakening my movement-and-performance-art-based practice after letting it go fallow during the pandemic, working with my Brazilian collaborator, Ivy Monteiro, on the expansion of our touring work, Mother the Verb: a queer performance with an air of ritual, fed by dance, text and video. We are creating a follow up piece entitled Mother / Forgotten Blaze — an experimental, multimedia performance set in the charred landscape of an inferno. Connecting West Coast wildfires with the burning Amazons, we will see what the fires have to say regarding mothering, queerness, and toxicity — the main themes of this work.
Javier Stell-Fresquéz, Mother the Verb
My work with the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits community is ongoing — our next in-person powwow is on February 4, and I’m excited to be connecting my urban Native and LGBTQ2SIA+ communities to the continuing work of cultural burns and fire stewardship through traditional ecological knowledge workshops in partnership with Bay Area land stewards.