MEDICINE BUNDLES

Roots and Radiance: Queer Connections and Cultural Healing 2024. photo by Ify Okolie.

  • KEALOHA BRINGS FIREWEED SEEDS through LIVE MUSIC, DANCE, and DJ OFFERINGS. Fireweed is a warrior plant in their Dakelh homelands - the first to grow back and nurture returning life in the forest after fires.

    An original recording and performing MUSIC artist, and a diversely rooted DANCE artist;  KeAloha beams joy as they tell stories through movement and music.

    I. Original Music
    KeAloha has performed their music on stages across Turtle Island, including Vancouver and Ottawa International Jazz Festivals, and within local circles like Guilt & Company, Vines Festival, and Two Rivers Remix Festival.

    II. Hawaiian and Tahitian Hula
    KeAloha was a baby in a basket as their Mama and big siblings danced hulas for community. They continued on to study western studio styles such as ballet, jazz, tap, and contemporary. KeAloha has always felt most at home when they are sharing the art of shapeshifting in rhythm.

    III. Pow Wow
    Initiated into the Pow Wow Circle in 2022, KeAloha dances in ceremony and celebration at traditional and competition Pow Wows. They share Native Hoop, Jingle, and Fancy Shawl dances in community-organized spaces, schools, and beyond ~ amplifying Indigenous resurgence and pride.

  • KeAloha facilitates teaching and learning in circle. KeAloha centres curiousity, authenticity, joy, courage, and meaningful resourcing.
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    KeAloha fosters decolonial learning relationships with community by centring Indigenous wisdoms, resilience, wellness, histories, and future dreams.
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    KeAloha offers experiential, emotional, mindful, and somatic learning centred in:
    I. IndigiCrip and Disability Lineages
    II. Pow Wow Movement,
    III. Hawaiian Hula Foundations,
    IV. Rhythm and Harmony, and
    V. Writing, DreamStorming, and Alchemy

  • KeAloha’s trailblazes safer spaces for Disabled, Two+ Spirit, Queer, IBPOC survivors and dreamweavers.

    Since they were small KeAloha learned how to advocate through and survive the colonial family court system that tried to separate them from their family. Growing their career in Creative Resistance through Music and Dance, they have made space for intersectionally under-served and oppressed communities.

    KeAloha's lineages as a 2SIQ (Two+ Spirit IndigiQueer), Chronically Ill and Disabled, and Neurodivergent person have taught them the magic of shapeshifting.

    KeAloha offers community resourcing via sharing truth and story. Wisdoms of people who face intersectional barriers to wellness, belonging, culture, and community identity become guides to a future that leaves no one behind. 
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    KeAloha is advocates through blood memory, lived experiences, and destined dreams for inclusion, equity, and care for Queer and Disabled kin. KeAloha sees shared struggle for resurgence and liberation in Black and Indigenous kin globally, and believes in mobilizing until we are ALL free.

    KeAloha sees that our most marginalized community members map the way to collective liberation.

  • KeAloha is passionate about shaping of gathering space and people. They offer their inherent lived-wisdom in making spaces more accessible with nuance and creativity.

    They offer consultation and guidance to organize, and uplift community gatherings, festivals, and concerts with a core compass of:

    • disability justice

    • queer foundations

    • Indigenous and Black inclusion

    • financial accessibility

    • anti-colonial impact

    • accountability plans

As an interdisciplinary creator, and liberation advocate, KeAloha opens portals to intergenerational healing and inter-cultural solidarity. KeAloha anchors their practice in Aloha ʻĀina ~ love for the land, the people of the land, and all that exists in harmony.​

KeAloha works with communities, groups, and individuals to empower Re-Matriation efforts; and invites collaborators to meet them at an inclusive Pace of Disability.

LET'S COLLABORATE
A woman dancing on stage with music equipment, purple stage lights, dark background, and a large digital screen showing abstract patterns in the background.

DANCE IS MYBODY’S

RIGHT RETURN

A young woman dressed in Native American-inspired attire, holding multiple hoops at a large indoor gathering, possibly a cultural or community event, with many seated spectators and people in the background.
A woman in traditional colorful dress holding a fan, standing on stage.

KeAloha Browne is a mixed-IndigiQueer artist with chronic illness disability.

Belonging to Lheidli T’enneh Nation - the people where the two rivers flow together.

KeAloha’s name carries the mana of their Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) kupuna (ancestors); their seed as an artist was planted on day one: learning hulas from their Mom, who learned from her father. Kealoha initiated into Pow Wow teachings in 2022 in Kehewin Cree Nation, where they were blessed to begin practicing Native Hoop, Jingle Dress, and Fancy Shawl traditions. 

As the youngest of three siblings raised by their Mama - Nani Browne, Kealoha knows the magic of making somethings-from-nothings. In Native Hoop Dance, Kealoha opens portals to Indigenous Futurisms. Through immobilizing flare ups and tender returns, KeAloha has been dancing Hoop, Jingle Dress, and Fancy Shawl at local family pow wow nights 

KeAloha dances in prayer for the liberation of ALL occupied Nations, from Turtle Island to Palestine, from Hawai’i to Congo. Kealoha reveres the revolutionary healing of Pow Wow ~ honouring the medicine and resilience of our ancestors and babies.

Music is Medicine

A woman with long dark hair singing into a microphone, eyes closed, wearing a white lace long-sleeve top, with a bright window in the background.

KeAloha began playing the drum set at 12 years old. 7 years later, they had the privilege of studying Black American Music - obtaining a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance as a Drum Set major. In 2019 they were selected nation-wide to be the drummer of the Ottawa International Jazz Festival's Youth Jazz Summit. Their path as a session player in the "Vancouver" music scene has led them to perform and support artists from Teon Gibbs, Francis Arevalo, Breaking Boundaries; alongside forming original bands Sweetz and Cumbia Galera; and share many stages (from the Orpheum, Wisehall, Shipyards Festival, Guilt & Company, and beyond).

​In 2021, KeAloha began their original music project under their own name, and rose to CBC Searchlight's Top 100 with their single, "Mama's Hands". They later released "Mahina", which gained support as #13 on the Indigenous Music Countdown.​​

KeAloha's journey as a musician and performer has been shaped by the pace of disability, in essence and antidote to capitalist demands of the "music industry". They have been crafting their debut album, "MY BOOK OF PRAYERS" for the past 3 years; a soundtrack for the revolution of Indigenous youth, globally. During this time of witnessing live-streamed genocides for the first time in history, KeAloha is determined to offer medicine for the way forward in every element of creation.