Māhealani Uchiyama is an award-winning dancer, musician, composer, choreographer, recording artist, author, and teacher. She is the founder and director of the Māhea Uchiyama Center for International Dance in Berkeley and is Kumu Hula of Hālau KaUaTuahine. She is the creator and director of the Kāpili Polynesian Dance and Music Workshops. She holds a BA in Dance Ethnology and an MA in Pacific Islands Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi. She trained in traditional hula and Tahitian ʻori under the late Kumu Hula (hula master) Joseph Kamōha’i Kahā’ulelio.
A teacher and performer of Polynesian music and dance for over 40 years, her passion and mastery of Hawaiian and Tahitian performing arts has led to numerous concert tours to Tahiti, New Zealand and the islands of Hawai’i. Major musical appearances include the Hollywood Bowl, Te Papa Tongareva National Museum of New Zealand, and the San Francisco Opera House. She has taught workshops throughout the United States and Mexico. She was professor of Hawaiian Language at Stanford University.
She has participated in and been awarded top honors in competitions in California as well as in Hawaiʻi, including the King Kamehameha Hula and Chant Competition in Honolulu, and Kū Mai Ka Hula on Maui.
In addition to awards for excellence in Hawaiian and Tahitian dance, she is the recipient of the Aloha Spirit Award and has been presented the “Ke Kanaka Poʻokela” Award by the Berkeley Hawaiian Music Festival. She has been honored by the City of Berkeley with a proclamation declaring January 22, 2019 as Māhealani Uchiyama Day.
Māhealani has contributed a chapter on the hula for the publication Dancing on the Earth, Womenʻs Stories of Healing and Dance, (McMaster and Lesho) authored the Haumāna Hula Handbook for Students of Hawaiian Dance, as well as the book The Mbira, An African Musical Instrument, (both published by North Atlantic Books / Penguin Random House)
Māhealani has produced numerous recordings of traditional Hawaiian and Tahitian music. Her CD “Tatau” has been widely used by Polynesian dance organizations worldwide. She also has two recordings of mbira, the spiritual music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe, “Ndoro dze Madzinza” and “The Sky That Covers Us All”. Her CD “A Walk by the Sea” was awarded a Hawai’i Music Award for Best World Music Album. She has recently released her 8th CD, “Pasifika”.
Ms. Uchiyama has served on the panel of judges for the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and the Tahiti Fete of San Jose and Hilo. She is the former President of the Board of Directors of World Arts West, and is now Co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, a nationally acclaimed event recognized for making the Bay Area “the epicenter for dance from over 100 unique world cultures, resulting in the most vibrant and diverse dance community in the world.” She also serves as Vice President of Mbira The Non-Profit, an organization dedicated to the perpetuation of Shona music.
Most recently, Ms. Uchiyama has been an instructor of Hawaiian Dance at Gambia Academy. In addition to performances for MUCID, Ms. Uchiyama has recently produced the Mitambo Festival of Shona Music at Ashkenaz Music and Dance Community Center and the Full series at the Berkeley Film Archive, featuring artists such as Hālau o Keikialiʻi, Miriam Peretz and Melanie DeMore.