INDIGENEITY AND DECOLONIAL CHORAL PRACTICE

Dr. Jace Kaholokula Saplan

MUSIC:​ Bright Ideas - Shin Suzuma

ANDRÉ:​ Support for The Choral Commons comes from the University of San Diego, the Karen
and Tom Mulvaney Center for Community, Awareness, and Social Action and the College of
Arts and Sciences Arts Engagement Initiative.

EMILIE:​ USD’s Arts Engagement Initiative supports artistic action embedded in and responsive
to ever-changing social, cultural and political circumstances, deep and meaningful engagement
with community, and increased access to the arts on the USD campus and beyond.

ANDRÉ:​ The Choral Commons is a community where choral music practitioners and
organizations can gather in order to envision equity-centered choral futures. With our
community and creative partners, we hope to empower choral practitioners with additional
strategies for innovation, grounded in culturally responsive, critical and equity-centered values.

EMILIE:​ My name is Emilie Amrein,

ANDRÉ:​ And I’m André de Quadros,

EMILIE:​ And this is the Choral Commons Podcast.

JACE: ​Decolonization is to me, in the choral craft, framing away from a eurocentric gaze,
topically and structurally. Right? Because we cannot expect to use the choral body and
welcome in the words diversity and inclusivity if we don't frame things away from a white
narrative.

EMILIE: ​Indigenous people have been subjected to colonization for centuries. However, by
contrast with several other settler nations, the genocide of indigenous people in the United
States has rarely entered the mainstream narrative. Recently, some in our profession are
interrogating the colonial nature of the Euro paradigm of choral music while searching for more
expressive and authentic expressions of indigenous culture.

EMILIE: ​Conductor, educator, and scholar, Dr. Jace Kaholokula Saplan is known for his work in
celebrating the intersection between Hawaiian music and choral performance. He is director of
choral activities and assistant professor of music at the University of Hawai’i, and the founder
and artistic director of Nā Wai Chamber Choir. Nā Wai Chamber Choir is a treble ensemble
dedicated to the preservation, propagation, and innovation of Hawaiian choral music. They
perform a diverse array of repertoire from across the world, rooting process and perspectives
through a Hawaiian lens. Since 2009, Nā Wai has commissioned and mentored emerging
Native Hawaiian composers and choral musicians, toured throughout rural Hawaiian
communities, and led workshops on the performance of Hawaiian choral music throughout the
country.

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MUSIC: ​‘Oli o Nā Wai — Lilinoe Kauahikaua,​ Nā Wai Chamber Choir, ACDA Western Division
Conference, March 2020

EMILIE:​ It's so lovely to be with you today, Jace. Thank you so much for being with us. It’s here,
the middle of July. I'm in San Diego. André’s in Boston. You are in Hawaii. Can you tell us a little
bit about what you've been up to the last couple weeks in terms of the pandemic and the racial
uprisings and what's been going on in your life?

JACE: ​Uh, these past couple weeks have been incredibly interesting, and I think have provided
a lot of entry points for myself, for my community, for my community of artists and singers to
really look deeply at how we're connected, or a concept of Pilina, which is a Hawaiian metaphor
for how we are interwoven within the national conversation, the national fabric of critique right
now, and I think it's super interesting for us as we have been having these conversations on
zoom where you know, we kind of have explored, or I think realized, that when we try to unpack
who we are and what our responsibility is to the black lives matter movement with racial uprising
and we begin to explore what allyship means and what allyship looks like as indigenous
practitioners, as native Hawaiian choral artists, we begin to realize that allyship is framed
through a white gaze and its framed through a gaze that we don't really see ourselves in and so
our work through much of the pandemic has been exploring responsibility, or kuliana, towards
what does it mean as an indigenous or as a native ally that has both underwent historical
narrative of racism, but also has the responsibility to connect, or to be in Pilina, with black lives
and black artists and black narratives.

EMILIE:​ Let's open things up a little bit and give some context to who you are and where you
are working and the indigenity that you've already referenced today. So tell us a little bit about,
like, your story, your trajectory.

JACE: ​So I'm going to get started from the very beginning. I was born and raised in the
Ahupua'a, or in the land division of the Big Island of Waiākea, and it's near the harbor town of
Hilo on East Hawaii. I grew up in a family that revered their native identity, but I grew up with a
family in which my mother and my father inherited a lot of trauma in relationship with their native
or their Hawaiian identities. My mother was adopted. Both of my parents were separated from
their language and from cultural traditions, because during their upbringing it was illegal to
speak Hawaiian and there was this constant need to acculturate oneself to a western identity to
western standards of academic excellence, to white oneself. Um, and when I was raised when I
was brought into this world, it was right, it was right after this gathering or this need of a
Hawaiian Renaissance. And so, these native Hawaiian speaking schools, these opportunities to
relearn and to decolonize, or to attempt to decolonize one’s mind and align oneself towards
one's culture began and I was put in a school system called Aha Punana Leo where I was
raised and had the opportunity to, to use my language to the native Hawaiian language, 'Ōlelo,
Hawaii as my first language to see the world through that lens. My parents worked really hard to
try to afford me all of these opportunities to partake in hula, to see, and to practice music with
my grandmother, because at that point my grandmother realized it was time to start teaching
again. And so because of their sacrifices and because of the trauma they endured, I was
allowed this opportunity to step into the identity as a Hawaiian. I was also gifted the
responsibility to identify as Mahu, which is a gender expression and a gender identity that's
passed down within an indigenous context and the term Mahu means to identify in the middle
between gender expressions of Hina, what is traditionally feminine, and Ku, which is traditional,
what is traditionally masculine. But what's important to note is that it's not something you come
in necessarily identifying for your own behalf. It's a gender expression with the responsibility of
passing on your culture, your songs, your chants, and I, because I was gifted that identity, I
knew that for much of my life I saw responsibility in native musicking in communal music in even
Hawaiian, Hawaiian choral performance practice of the late 1800s. So I sang in choir throughout
high school and middle school. I found a sense of Hawaiian Hawaiian identity. I pursued music
education in my undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii, and then I asked myself,
really, really critical questions. When I started graduate work and finished graduate work about
here is this body of communal music making that served as a tool for cultural genocide, so what
is my responsibility to this craft that I've studied for so long, and how can I use this craft not as a
means for further creating generational trauma and separation from one's identity, but to help
unify it?

EMILIE:​ There's so much to unpack here, and I know André, you have a question, but before
we do that, I'm wondering, for the average listener to The Choral Commons, and who might
have an imagination of what Hawaiian culture is that is maybe two dimensional or stereotypical
I, I'm wondering if you can briefly, just paint a picture of what indigenous native Hawaiian culture
might look like that expands and extends outside of that 2 dimensional framework and also.
Um? Yeah, let's start there.

JACE: ​Sure.

EMILIE: ​I mean, I know it's like how can I, it’s like an impossible question like can you briefly like
invoke all of this amazing rich tapestry of culture? But I guess I just really want to point to the
fact that this is like the imagination of native Hawaiian culture is something that contributes to
some problems, right? And I so want to kind of like make it a little more nuanced if you can.

JACE:​ Oh yeah, totally. It's important to note that because we are a series of islands and
because geography can contribute a lot of problematic interpretations of identity based on
colonialism, settler behavior, and the like and because we don't have a lot of land mass in
comparison to other places in the world in the late 1800s, when we endured and when we
existed in community with 5o to 80 years of established missionary presence, we then had
countries from all over the world coming into Hawaii to participate in the sugar cane plantation
expeditions, and it was not only a means of coming together for, for capital gain, but it created
this ecosystem where in this very small landmass you had a complex web of identities that
came together to create this unique ecosystem of Culture. And while I think that in many
capacities that's a beautiful narrative to uphold, while all of this is happening, this is happening
on native land and in doing so and in this in all of these things happening, we lose the sense of
what it means to be a Hawaiian, or we are given the reality to innovate or to recontextualize
what it meant to be Hawaiian, and what Hawaiian music sounds like. Case and point, in the late
1800s, Liliʻuokalani, a Native Hawaiian composer, the last Queen or the Hawaiian Kingdom,
writes music in 3/4 time because she's connecting to the dramatic band world that was
introduced. At this time, Hawaiian choirs use hymnitty and homophonic textures as a means to
protest against American presence. At this time, the Ukulele begins to be synonymous with
Hawaiian cultures, with Hawaiian culture without referencing the fact that it was introduced from
Portugal. And we, we go through this cycle through years and years and years with the tourism
industry and blue Hawaii and the radio, the radio station Hawaii calls. And we begin to endure
cycles of Sonic Colonialism and Sonic Colonial behavior and our method of resistance is
reclaiming these sound worlds. Reclaiming these rituals and decolonizing these rituals so that
it's a mean for Hawaiian community building and Hawaiian identity making.

MUSIC: ​Kū Haʻaheo- Kumu Hina, ​Nā Wai Chamber Choir, ACDA Western Division Conference,
March 2020

ANDRÉ: ​I think you raise so many profound matters that I personally identify with because,
because as somebody who, whose family was, was converted to Christianity from Hinduism and
and, and it's still also kept the caste system alive and were expected to subvert some very
essential and traditional aspects of Indian culture and then we almost owned the culture of the
of the colonizers, that which is in a sense tragic. But I think I'm going to ask, I think two or three
questions that I think are critical that come out of what you're talking about. You talk about Pilina
and and I think that Pilina is an interesting metaphor for this idea of almost common ground, of
binding together, of unifying, and I'm wondering whether, whether, whether, Pilina in this time in
2020, in this fractured time, that the concept of Pilina, which is an old word, can be a way in
which one bridges, not only the divide and the segregation and the divergent aspirations of, of,
of so many people, but, but can also find a way, not only in Hawaii, but also nationally and
internationally. What’s the Pilina message, if you like.

JACE:​ Wow. I mean to think of how Hawaiian values and a Hawaiian concept can connect to a
global phenomenon is really humbling to think about. What Pilina allows us to do is to move
past the surface of performative connection. Right, it recognizes when we connect to something,
when I say hey can we foster pilina right now, what that tells the learner is in the environment is
that it's not just yourself in this conversation, it's those that have come before you and that have
endured and that have innovated and that have undergone an amalgamation of things, and it's
also those that will come after you, so it's that and it creates from what I, from what I have
observed in what I, how I view that word, it creates a sense of reverence. And it allows me to
look past myself, and it allows me to see my body as a container of history and of the future and
all the more reason that when I connect to something, I'm not just bringing my experiences, I'm
bringing my ancestors’ experiences and I'm bringing those that will come after me as well. Of all
of the identities that I encapsulate.

ANDRÉ:​ But you know, I think, I think the way you're speaking is so, so different to the way our
choral conducting profession speaks. You’re talking about colonizing, you're talking about
history, you’re talking about the body as a container for the past generations and so on. But at
the same time, what you're doing, which is quite extraordinary, is you're able to bring an
intellectual conceptualisation framing and reframing of these vocabulary, these important
symbols in ways of seeing the world in a Hawaiian world view such as Pilina. And I'm wondering
whether that makes sense. Now I'm saying, asking this question in the same way that we talked
about how Ubuntu in South Africa was a kind of a way in which we might think about community
and so on. So I think we all understand that the way in which we think, way in which we feel, the
way in which we've organized the world is our kind that we don't want to continue. So we need
new metaphors, new ideas, new concepts, new feelings.

EMILIE:​ New stories

ANDRÉ:​ New stories, exactly so that's why I think we think about Pilina is it? Is my question
making a bit more sense? Help me to, help me to, be, be more Pilina kind of minded if you like.

JACE: ​Right? Yeah I mean, to kind of, kind of circle back on like this idea of who we are as
containers or whatever and just kind of circling in on, on, on language too. What that teaches us
in a choral context is that when we do these performative exercises of diversity, equity and
inclusion work what that means is, it has to go past topical connection. It has to go toward
structural or pedagogical connection. If we aren't teaching native and indigenous lives and
bodies or any BIPOC identities that they have a responsibility to allowing the works of
eurocentric composers, I'm sorry to connect to the works of eurocentric composers and that
their musical lineage can teach and have things to offer toward Euro Centric performance
practice, then we're not doing our work in creating Pilina between these two divisions or within
the silos of our craft justice. You know, I think when I scaffold a lesson or when I'm working here
within the context of my native identity and also a choral conductor, how am I going to
interweave or create Pilina between, let's say Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and unnamed chant,
that they were gifted when they were young, what are the connections between those two, and
how can I teach towards connection as opposed to this piece goes here in this act of
performance, this piece goes here and never the two shall meet. If I can't create Pilina in my
programming, then we, we can't create Pilina within the lives of our students and how they see
themselves in the craft.

EMILIE: ​So what I thought was so interesting about how you were characterizing the connection
that is Pilina is that it's not just like a lateral thing, right? It's not like you're making, it's not a
relationship between me and you and you and André and André and me and like that kind of
interlocking of present, right? It's, it's also time bound, and it is a different way of thinking about
time that isn't linear. Uhm, and I think it's a really great entry point into understanding indigeneity
as a way of knowing as much as an identity and to think in, in, with a different set of lenses and
conceptualize time as something that can be embodied both past, present, and future in, like, in
your body. I mean, that's just such a radical idea for people who are who identify as you know,
coming from that Western European settler colonial framework and it's, it's an amazing idea and
I love the way that you talk about it in terms of the programming, but I guess I'm wondering if
you can also connect it to the, what you were talking about in terms of your own identity and
gender expression and the idea of responsibility, and vocation and how all of that is, is how that
lives in you?

JACE:​ Honestly, I'm still figuring it out. And I don't think I'll ever figure it out, and I think that's the
beauty of this conundrum. When I started Graduate School, I still didn't really identify as a choral
conductor, and you know honestly, I I still hold that term in that identity within my body with a lot
of critique, with a lot of personal critique, because you know when we think about the craft of
choral conducting and who we are is choral conductors and the the way the the way that our
profession looks like from the day to day from K through 12, community, professional, semi
professional, University. All those things, they look so different from each other that it's hard to
encapsulate that term and what lens you are using since we're talking about lens and bodies
right now. And so I know first and foremost that I identify as a native Hawaiian cultural
practitioner. And that I have a responsibility to, because of my Mahu identity, to pass on music.
To pass on stories, native, native cultures or cultures everywhere are so contingent upon
storytelling and narrative that when I view a rehearsal, that's not necessarily a rehearsal, it's a
time to be in communion with narrative and Mo'olelo as we call it, or stories

MUSIC: ​Kū Haʻaheo- Kumu Hina, ​Nā Wai Chamber Choir, featuring Lilinoe Kauahikaua​, ​ACDA
Western Division Conference, March 2020

ANDRÉ:​ Jace, let me take you back a little bit to when you said, because of your Mahu identity
and, and those who are not so familiar with the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation
that this idea that somehow queer and I think for a lot of people transgender has been seen as a
concept of dysphoria, and, and, and you know I've talked about before that that seeing it as, as
almost an aberration, although not everybody may, may see that way in, in, in conventional
western society, but nevertheless, we've inherited this sense in which and when in which it's, it's
an aberration, whereas Mahu speaks about gender identity, sexual orientation fairly differently,
and I'm wondering if you could just come back a little bit to where you were saying about, 'cause
you Mahu identity and, and so on that allows you to be a different kind of choral conductor and
you talk about that a bit here now?

JACE:​ Sure, the point that I connected the most is on the concept of gesture, another concept
of conducting. To reference one of my favorite books right now, ​Bodies Out of Bounds​ by Jana
Evans Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco. One of my favorite novels about understanding bodies
and gesture and thinking about how, when we talk about conducting only talk about gesture in
our craft, a lot of it, a lot of it is framed through the lens of ableism, right? So how I view my
Mahu identity within this craft and as a storyteller of gesture and of motion, being mahu allows
me to encapsulate an expansive perspective of the feminine, of the masculine, of the things in
between and how the body is able to communicate these moments of gesture that spur sound,
much like Hula can do, and it allows my students through what we could consider a western
perspective of, of androgyny, to see this canvas of sound where we are able to remove our bias
of gendered interpretations of gesture and see a connection of Pilina, if you will, between sound
and movement interwoven with storytelling.

ANDRÉ:​ I mean if you raise an interesting question which I have heard other people refer to in
other ways that In other words, the gesture of choral conducting, that figure is the very beats
which, which we become accustomed to thinking is pretty standard, have been developed,
developed by by white men essentially, and as I, as I think somehow it came into being through
white men, and even if it didn't have the the documentation the fixing of it by people like, like
Max Rudolf and so on, have made it a kind of a taxonomy that's almost inviolable, and I've got
this great story of when I was doing a production project in Bali and there was, there was a
choral conductor who was in choir in performance and there were these balinese Gamelan
players on the side, and they were, they were young, there with these young guys they were,
they were laughing and laughing at the choral conductor and every time they did something they
threw their hands up and and I went to them and I said, what's funny? And they said look, look,
look, look at this person. She's not doing anything, she’s just moving her hands. And I said,
don't you understand that, that her hands are communicating the way in which these people
should sing. He said, but she's not making any music. I mean, anybody can move their hands.
And, and I couldn't persuade them that she was doing anything that was musically meaningful.
They were, they were, they were making jokes. This was during a concert right and this, these
very traditional Balinese Gamelan players. And my colleague Emily Howe and I were there and
we were just remarking about this because we think that this is somehow this grammar of
gesture is somehow universal and it's, it couldn't be any other way, but, you know, you're raising
something that's really, really fundamental and critical here. There are alternative ways of
communicating other than what we've been handed down, right?

EMILIE:​ But not just alternatives, right? Like I, I'm just so struck, by the way that you opened
this segment of the conversation, André in terms of talking about sexuality and gender as being
somehow transgressive and this comes back to Jace were saying at the beginning is even like
the idea of allyship through that lens of whiteness, right that that we are framing sexuality as
normal and something that's not normal, right? Or like something that is in the center and
something is in the margins, right? And that it's kind of coming from the position of the center
that casts anything that is not conforming as transgressive, as different, as alternative. And this
is in terms of sexuality, it's in terms of bodies, and ableism and disability, it's in terms of gender,
it's in terms of the language of conducting, it's in terms of this idea of whiteness and the social
construction of blackness that is created by whiteness in order to exploit and enslave, and so all
of these ideas I think come back to the framework of decolonization and decoloniality and so I'm
wondering, because we've talked now today about a lot of kind of conceptual things and I love, I
love this, I'm wondering, like if you can, if you were going to give like an entryway to
understanding what decoloniality or decolonization is in terms of choral practice like, like how
can you, how can you like take me by the hand and like help me to understand it if I haven't
read you know, ​Decolonization is Not a Metaphor​.

JACE: ​It's so easy to have these conversations that are zoomed in, but to zoom out, you know I
would encourage all of us to ask ourselves these questions, right? So the first question I would
ask when we begin to think about what decolonization is in and of itself before I address the
questions, what decolonization is to me in the choral craft is framing away from a Eurocentric
gaze, topically and structurally right because we cannot expect to use choral, the choral body
and welcome in the words diversity and inclusive, inclusivity if we don't frame things away from
a white narrative.

EMILIE: ​Right, right, but even, even go further back like what does that even mean like
eurocentric gaze? Because I understand what you're talking about, but like, like what does that
mean like? How, how is choral practice, coming from that position. Like what does it mean when
you say that?

JACE: ​I think what people don't realize is that choral performance and the, the active choral
singing was an important tool for America, for Europe to use as a way to acculturate brown
bodies, black bodies, indigenous bodies, anything that's not white to forget to move away to
decenter themselves away from their rituals and to use choir as a ritual to colonize or to reframe
their perspectives to a colonial perspective. Does that make sense so I'm forgetting my rituals. I
am no longer allowed to use these practices as a non white person?

EMILIE:​ This is like when you talk about cultural genocide. The erasure of, of Language, the
erasure of music, the erasure of rituals, the erasure of identities, the erasure of all of these
things that is like the framework of the elimination of the native, right. Like this, is like what the
Colonial Settler orientation to the world is about, but I guess I just feel like there might be many,
a lot, maybe of folks in the choral world who don't like, I mean, for whom even what we're talking
about now is so foreign of a concept, you know? And that's distressing to me, and so I'm trying
to figure out how we can kind of like.

ANDRÉ:​ I mean, it's distressing 'cause it because in a sense, part of the genocide issues that
arise that we only then are able to talk in the language of the colonizers, so, so if you think
about, I know that you've been looking at Queen Lili’uokalani’s compositions, but she was
writing in a literate, using using a western notation. And, and what people dress, the kinds of
models addressed the fact that that, that Native Hawaiians who I mean just, just until a few
years ago the language ʻŌlelo Hawaii was considered an endangered language by UNESCO. I
mean now it's considered a little bit less in danger, but it's not out of, out of the woods, so to
speak, so, so this is the, this is the tragedy of cultural genocide that we actually are forced to
adopt the clothes of the people who colonized us.

EMILIE:​ How do you like make sense of it? Both of you. I mean, how is it that? How do you
reconcile it? ​If the discursive practices of settler coloniality have this malignancy in them, how is
it possible that you can then, in your mind, reconcile participating even? I mean, I hear all of
what you're talking about, both of you, in terms of cultural genocide and it like makes me… my
body feels repulsed by like the traditions of the practice (and I mean I'm saying this, and I'm
probably going to edit it out of the conversation), but like I feel this honestly. How can I continue
to uphold and reproduce and participate in like canon-building and affirming whiteness and
settler coloniality in choral practice? The music and the practices of choral music-- it is complicit
in the erasure and the cultural genocide that you're talking about. How do I --or how do you--
reconcile that?

JACE: ​We don't have enough time, Emilie. [Laughter]

EMILIE:​ Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait no listen like I think can you just like, let like
respond like just briefly even like I know there's not much time.

JACE:​ No yeah I think. Huh, where have I taken? Where am I? Oh, there's so many entry points
that we can go with this. Because it, it, to decolonize oneself as a native person is a very
different practice than calling out Colonias, colonialists behavior, or asking a white colleague to
decolonize their gaze. Right, when we come to the concept of decolonization amongst a
marginalized identity, they are basically unlearning themselves as a means of, of emancipation,
not themselves, but like narratives, as a means of emancipation or switching power structures,
structures of understanding their own narrative. Case in point, there is a hymn called Nū ʻOli
Glad Tidings from the book of Luke, from the Bible, a, normally a hymn, that is, sung throughout
the world, but Nū ʻOli has an incredible place in my heart in terms of how I access and
remember my grandmother and my mother, right. It was also the first hymn that was recorded to
be sung and to be delivered at the first Congregationalist gathering in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
So this hymn that resulted in centuries of, of, of acculturation away from one's native identity
towards a white narrative and an entirely different tradition, is also, also has room in my heart of
complete nostalgia. It was, it was the song my mother sang to me when as, as a young child to
arouse me to sleep. It was the very first song my grandmother taught me on the ukulele and
started entire lifetime of music making. Right, like I have to understand that, that, that my
relationship, my Pilina, with that song is incredibly complex, but also needs to be labeled as
problematic. It's taking a look at this lineage of the sound world that I am in relationship with and
looking at it with ways that I need to be aware of my relationship to that Sonic History and I need
to call it out right? And that was, yeah, that was met with moments of struggle,
MUSIC: ​Kū Haʻaheo- Kumu Hina, ​Nā Wai Chamber Choir, ACDA Western Division Conference,
March 2020

ANDRÉ:​ So let's let's talk about this diversity and inclusion business that you referred to earlier,
Jace. It has been said relatively recently amongst some folks, that, that this current uprising
draws attention to the serious history and the brutal, brutalization of African Americans for
centuries. But, but in early, in earlier conversations it has been said that indigenous people have
been somehow neglected, even though there's an “I” in the BIPOC for indigenous, most people
aren’t familiar with that and the reason I'm bringing this up is when I first came to United States
almost 20 years ago from Australia where it is the substance of all conversations about race,
this issue of Aboriginal people in the genocide, and when I came here is almost never spoken
about, and I'm wondering if, if, how you, where you find a place for yourself as an indigenous
person in this larger conversation on racism?

JACE: I​t's hard to create a body of Allyship if you, as a culture bearer, make up less than 2% of
the national population, right? So, how do I found myself specifically was the question.

ANDRÉ:​ Yes, but only how you find yourself. But how do you find as, as a culture bearer and as
a kind of a almost like a standard bearer for, for indigenous people in Hawaii, but also for
indigenous people all over the world. And I think that this is, this is the issue if you look at some
of the demonstrations that are happening in many, many cities. They're talking about police,
violence and, and, and I want to say that, for example, there was a video of the brutality of, of, of
Chauvin over George Floyd and as there have been many others, but one of my formerly
incarcerated folks talk to me and said there are no videos of the brutality against people who are
in prison. And so in this big conversation we talk about what's happening in the streets with
police. We don't talk what's happening in prisons enough, and so what I'm trying to say is that
there the brutality of colonial, coloniality, the brutality of race, the brutality of, of, in so many
forms is so diverse and must be spoken about in so many ways that I'm wondering that this
issue of indigenous people is, is obviously close to your heart, how do you speak to that?

JACE:​ Oh yeah. What’s so interesting as an indigenous person being in communion with other
indigenous/Native Hawaiians, framing a dialogue that is native Hawaiian centered on our
responsibility in our relationship, specifically around the black lives movement and how it
connects to other conversations. One of the biggest things that we've struggled with was
understanding that this, all of this uprising all of, all of these, these conversations and these
demonstrations that rooted from horrific events rooted in racism happened on stolen land. And
you know, when you zoom in and zoom out on a micro and a meta context, I mean that's really
problematic and we wrestle in a very vulnerable way with all of what's happening, right? I think
this framing around what it means to be anti racist is framed within a black and a white umbrella
right? And I mean just like there's a gender binary, there is a race binary around our
responsibility as a country to be anti racist, right? And where do we fit in as Native Hawaiians as
indigenous people? Not that I, not that I speak on behalf of an entire group of people. Our
conversations have fostered around, regardless of who we are as a person and are looking at
our marginalized identities. When we think about the concept of Pilina, we see our identities as
this entire net connected with other people that there in result into this incredible ecosystem of
power and privilege. In one circumstance, I have power in that conversation. I am a native
Hawaiian, I'm an educated native Hawaiian with a DMA and a faculty position that identifies as
Mahu in a community that understands the reverence around that identity, and so when I walk
across the street late at night, I don't fear for my life, right when I'm walking across the street
with my Caucasian husband holding hands, we have safety because we're in, we're in a
community that regards this my Brown identity as important. Would I be able to, sorry, would I
be able to have that exact same conversation if it was last year in upstate New York, two years
ago in upstate New York. Probably not. But what I think is important is that as an indigenous
person, it is my responsibility to know and to proclaim and to do my work as a choral artist, as a
choral conductor in ensuring that this conversation, is, happens and is discussed, is facilitated
within moments of learning as we enter into the fall and that my native and indigenous students
understand that they have relationship with that narrative and they themselves have a Hawaiian
idea of what allyship looks like amongst the black, Black Lives Matter movement.

---

EMILIE: ​André and I spoke with Dr. Jace Kaholokula Saplan in early July. You can learn more
about Jace’s work with Na Wai Chamber Choir at ​https://www.nawaichamberchoir.com/​ or on
his website: ​https://www.jacesaplan.com/​.

MUSIC: ​Kū Haʻaheo- Kumu Hina,​ Nā Wai Chamber Choir, ACDA Western Division Conference,
March 2020

EMILIE:​ The Choral Commons Podcast is hosted by Emilie Amrein and André de Quadros,
produced by Emilie Amrein in partnership with Chorus America and the Eric Ericsson
International Choral Centre, and supported by listeners like you.

ANDRÉ: ​Additional institutional and creative partners include the Harvard Choral Program, St.
Olaf College, University of Hawai’i Choirs, the University of San Diego, Manado State University
Choir, Na Wai Chamber Choir, and Voices 21C.

EMILIE:​ If your organization would like to join our list of sponsors, please reach out to us at
thechoralcommons@gmail.com. Or consider joining our community of supporters on our
website, where you can schedule regular donations of 5 or 10 dollars a month to help us offset
the costs of producing these programs.

ANDRÉ:​ The Choral Commons aims to provide a space for choirs and conductors to envision
innovative and equity-centered practice. We produce podcasts and interactive webinars and
offer curated resources on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
EMILIE: ​We connect and engage community in meaningful dialogue on pedagogy and practice,
and incubate creative, artistic, and compassionate choral projects that empower choral music
organizations to work for a just and peaceful world.

EMILIE: ​The Nā Wai Chamber Choir performed the music you heard throughout today’s
episode at the ACDA Eastern Division Conference in March. The excerpts you heard were
drawn from two pieces. The first excerpt was from the chant, ʻOli O Nā Wai by ​Nā Wai member
​ utlining the significance of the name ​Nā Wai​, and the groups’ intention
Lilinoe Kauahikaua, o
as an ensemble. The second excerpt ​was from Kū Haʻaheo composed by māhū educator,
community leader, and musician Kumu Hina. This song is a sonic banner for the Kū Kiaʻi Mauna
movement, calling on the Hawai’ian people to rise together for the protection and preservation
of their homeland. You can listen to the full recording on our website,
www.thechoralcommons.com.