Happy Holidays and Final Update 2022
kealoha
We are a collective of notes in the jazz scale of humanity
united through the song of our breath
and though we speak in different tongues, we dream
the same dreams connected through our collective experience,
so come out from your shelters, my children, feel the warmth of the sun,
the time to listen to each other has just begun.
During the final days of this eventful 2022, this is our wish for you, and for all of us: that we listen to one another, and bask in each other’s light, which — even in the darkest days of winter — provides us with the warmth and nourishment of community and shared purpose.
Our team at Engaging the Senses Foundation plans to reveal more about upcoming projects and to communicate more about the beautiful work of our ongoing partnerships in early 2023. Today, we want to celebrate the completion and premiere ofThe Story of Everything (TSOE), Hawai’i Poet Laureate Kealoha’s epic multimedia exploration of the universe, the earth, and human consciousness.
In the film, produced and directed by ETSF, Kealoha collaborated with a supremely talented cast of dancers and musicians, including Taimane — best known for her fierce and inventive style of playing the ukulele — and Kau‘i Kanaka’ole, a member of the illustrious Native Hawaiian Kanaka‘ole family whose expertise in hula and oli are transmitted through matrilineal succession. Art work and direction for TSOE were provided by Native Hawaiian artist, illustrator, and visionary Solomon Enos, whose art expresses an informed, aspirational vision of the world at its best via contemporary and traditional art.
The Story of Everything takes us a journey through the Stars and the Big Bang, into our Solar System, and on to a deeper understanding of our Planet based on the beautiful Kumulipo creation story. We unfold our minds to tales of human Evolution, travel with our ancestors along the Migration path, and come to a place, in the film’s final scene, of both confronting the dangers inherent in a world impacted by rapid climate change, and gaining new hope about the real ways in which we can still cherish and protect our beautiful Earth.
The film premiered at Hawai’i International Film Festival, with seven screenings in November, including the premiere on O’ahu on the Bishop Museum’s Great Lawn, and HIFF’s showings island-wide on Hawaiʻi Island, Maui, and Kaua’i. Showing also in the summer of 2022 at the Maui Film Festival, TSOE won the 2022 Maui Film Festival Narrative Feature Audience Award. Everywhere The Story of Everything screened, audiences were moved, challenged and responsive. We have received many requests for additional showings and engagements, in particular by audience members who see the potential for reaching the hearts and minds of children and young people in order to bring light, solutions and hope to the generation that will soon take on the challenge of caring for the world.
Along those lines, ETSF is developing educational outreach connected to The Story of Everything with our partner Mālama Honua Public Charter School who have created The Learning of Everything, an arts-integrated pilot program that augments and amplifies the school’s mission, inspired from the art of storytelling and messages contained within TSOE. We’re so excited to expand this model to more schools and communities moving forward!
We also look ahead with anticipation to 2023 showings of The Story of Everything in conjunction with our partner the Arts Research Center (ARC) of University of California Berkeley, Arts Humanities Division (screening on April 21, 2023 — please see more information coming in late January), and with other wonderful partners and at various festivals and venues throughout the U.S. and perhaps world!
Meanwhile, our other greatest hope for all of you and for ourselves is that we celebrate all that is good in our lives and remember to:
Dance for the moment, sculpt our lives out of soil,
and make the universe smile.
Be the expressive process that is humanity.
Kealoha
Wishing you all a restful and peaceful holiday! Until next year, love from the team at Engaging the Senses Foundation.