Professor, Department of Theatre
Associate Chair, Director of Theatre
Director of the Asian Theatre Program
pauka@hawaii.edu
Courses:
THEA 152 Live on Stage
THEA 311, 312, 411, 412 World Theatre Series
THEA/ASAN 336 Intro to Performing Arts of Southeast Asia
THEA 426 Southeast Asian Acting Workshop
THEA 464 Drama and Theatre of South and Southeast Asia
THEA 625 Experimenting with Asian Acting Style
THEA 660 Field Research Methods
THEA 680 Multi-Cultural Directing
THEA 663B Origins of Theatre in Asia
THEA 763B Seminar in Asian Theatre
THEA 695, 690, 700, 800 Creative and Research Projects
Kirstin Pauka’s research interests are performance traditions of Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asia. She has done extensive field research on Randai theatre of Sumatra. She is a practitioner and scholar of martial arts and their relationship to performing arts. Dr. Pauka has produced and directed several Indonesian theatre productions at UH Kennedy Theatre, including the US premieres of English language adaptations of Sumatran Randai theatre, and Balinese Wayang Listrik (Balinese shadow theatre). The shows she directed in collaboration with Indonesian master artists have received multiple Poʻokela awards over the years. Dr. Pauka served as Director of the UHM Center for Southeast Asian Studies from 2014-18. Recently she has been spearheading a multi-year educational outreach project using Balinese folk tales and puppetry to highlight environmental issues affecting island communities like Bali and Hawaiʻi, geared towards K-12 students.
In addition to her work at the university, Dr. Pauka has been a member of the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble for the past 30 years and regularly performs with the Ensemble locally, nationally, and internationally. She is an instructor at the Taiko Center of the Pacific.