A Pacific creative incubator community
Fanning the flames of Pacific creativity for the future health of our peoples and our planet
ABOUT US
Mōhala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua.
The flower blossoms where water falls
Pulse Oceania believes that a healthy creative ecosystem is essential to the success of future sovereignty across the Pacific.
Our vision
is to advance sovereignty and community health across the Pacific by establishing Hawaiʻi as the premiere gathering place for indigenous contemporary performing arts rooted in aloha ʻāina.
Our mission
is to support out-of-the box performance projects through creative cohorts, “Kilo & Create”artist retreats, and festivals rooted in aloha ʻāina and ʻike kūpuna.
WAIWAI • VALUES
Pacific centered, driven, and celebrated:
We celebrate the multi-cultural, intersectional, diverse global communities and networks of Pacific Islanders too often flattened and strive to amplify equally diverse voices and experiences that reclaim their narrative on their own terms
Honoring and responding to Pacific artists preceding us:
We acknowledge ʻike kūpuna–the insightful, innovative contributions made by our ancestors–as our constant source of inspiration and learning; we celebrate the advances made by previous generations of cultural practitioners and artists around the world in whose footsteps we follow
Kilo and theory:
Both embodied physical experience and theoretical labor are essential for creative growth and will be part of the unique solutions contributed from the Pacific region to the world
Pilina and process over product:
Building holistic, sustainable support for Pacific performing artists requires responsiveness to community needs and space for slowness in the development of new ideas
FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
Nāwāhineokalaʻi Lanzilotti
Nawahine Lanzilotti is a kanaka ʻōiwi (Native Hawaiian) artist and arts educator born and raised in lower Mānoa valley on Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi. She holds graduate degrees in ethnomusicology (ʻ12) and experimental music (ʻ19) from Eastman School of Music and the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College respectively.
From 2012-2018, Nawahine lived between Hawaiʻi and New Delhi, India training in hula, studying North Indian classical music, and creating new performances with artists across North India. Working with indigenous artists in India and the continental US motivated her to return home in 2019 to build more opportunities for global exchanges between Native Hawaiians and international indigenous artists.
In May 2023, Nawahine founded Pulse Oceania to advance Pacific sovereignty (for our food, lands, and waters) through projects that support indigenous creative processes and artistic exchanges. In 2024, Nawahine was selected to join the third cohort of the Culture of Health Leadership Institute (CoHLI) through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Collaborative for Health Equity.