Leilehua Lanzilotti

Approaching the concept of mapping through an indigenous cartographic lens (see Louis, Kanaka Hawai‘i Cartography), I wrote this piece thinking about spatial/temporal knowledge acquisition, representation, and transmission as encoded in dance and music. One endearing thing about giving / getting directions in Hawai‘i is that people will often use important local landmarks that are no longer there, or where something used to be. The memory of these places, either passed through oral tradition, or through personal recollection, becomes a mental map of the landscape, maintained simultaneously with the rapidly changing modern world. This piece is the dance between what is and what used to be.

Creation and development of the work was supported in part by the Bogliasco Foundation with the generous support of the Edward T. Cone Special Fellowship in Music