The Mbira: An African Musical Tradition

MAHEALANI UCHIYAMA is an award-winning dancer, musician, composer, choreographer, recording artist, teacher, and author. An advocate for cross-cultural understanding, she is the founder and artistic director of the Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance (MUCID) and director of the Polynesian dance company Hālau KaUaTuahine, with whom she has toured internationally.

Uchiyama’s unique perspective on the mbira is informed by her status as an initiated priestess of Ifa, a spiritual tradition of West Africa. Having studied Shona music for over a decade, both locally and in Zimbabwe, her work with the mbira has been recognized by the City of Oaklandʻs Cultural Funding Program, which sponsored her to teach the music and tradition of the mbira to Oakland residents. She is the former President of the Board of Directors of World Arts West and the current Co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, as well as, Vice President of MBIRA the Non Profit. She is the author of Haumāna Hula Handbook for Students of Hawaiian Dance.