Lecturer
Affiliate Graduate Faculty
māhū
sama@hawaii.edu
Courses:
DNCE 255 Global Perspectives on Dance
DNCE 357 Queer Dance Exploratory
DNCE 362 Visual Media for Dance
DNCE 450 Indigenous Dance Studies
DNCE/THEA 459 Special Topics
Sami L.A. Akuna is a N.E.A. recipient and has choreographed and performed in Asia, Europe, North America, and across the Pacific. Currently Sami is the Arts Education and Cultural Programmer for the Mahui, and the newly appointed Entertainment Director for the Honolulu Legacy Foundation.
Sami holds a BFA in Theatre and Dance, and MFA in Asian Theatre Directing from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and currently teaches the nation’s very first Queer dance class. The class explores the communal embodiment of gay nightclubbing during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s to Disco, the Hawaii Drag Scene and Vogue and Ballroom Culture. Sami began a career in Butoh and Drag in 1991, right here in Honolulu.
Cocoa Chandelier, Sami’s alter ego, travels continuously as an advocate and spokesperson for HIV/AIDS, and is a long standing member with the United Territories of Pacific Islanders in Alliance that serves the Native Pacific Island and MVPFAFF + community across the Hawaiian islands and the Pacific.