Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with KeAloha
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Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist, after the verbal conversations have been had.
KeAloha { kay-ah-loh-hah } (she/they) is an artist, drummer, singer, songwriter, and DJ. She is born and raised in Lheidli T’enneh territory, where part of her maternal ancestry hails. Follow her work on https://www.kealoha.ca and Instagram @kealoha.music.
Location: Kind Cafe & Eatery
What do you make/create?
The name Dreamweaver came to me... I feel all of my practices weave together these pretty diverse parts of me. My art is primarily understood as music, and poetry through music. I also integrate dance and movement. I write my own songs, arrange it for the band, and invite my band in. I perform as a vocalist and drummer.
The drums were my first instrument. Prior to that, my body was my first instrument through my mom teaching us the traditional hulas of our Hawaiian and Tahitian ancestry to my two older siblings and I as we were growing up. Through these teachings, my art was always embedded with thinking about how movement can impact community. The Hawaiian hula is the – well, the most amazing quote from King David Kalakaua: “Hula is the language of the heart, and therefore, the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people.” Hula tells stories; it tells our stories. It’s a way of expressing. It feels like one of the deepest forms of expression.
I’ve gone through lots of adaptations as I’ve explored living with chronic illness and learnt about how dance would have to show up differently in my life at certain times, which ended up giving more space for starting my own original music project.
My music project is about telling stories and fuelling Indigenous resurgence.
What do you do to support that?
The first thing that comes to mind is my experiences of this summer, which expanded my understanding of ceremony and community in relation to my Indigeneity. I didn’t grow up in my rez, or directly in community with my nation due to the complexities of intergenerational racism and traumas. A lot of my culture has been very closely held, and treasured, between my mom and my siblings, and my immediate family – mainly the four of us being the core, really. Gradually, over the past few years, and especially this summer, I’ve had more moments to really stretch my wings and find confidence in connecting with my lineage.
A lot of the nourishment for my craft comes from my family. I think about, as I mentioned, my mom planting the seed for my artistry. Familial blood stories, I guess. Things that have to come out of us, and that, in turn, flows in this cycle of nourishment. The more I find space to share my true self, share the wisdoms that I’ve gathered – as an Indigenous femme, as a queer person, as a disabled person – that then can be harnessed into – you know, maybe it’s income, maybe it’s community, or even just strength from hearing my own voice say it, and that can bring me back to a new place to plant a new seed and start a new project.
My family and partner have hugely supported me – they have always been a core keeping me alive through the lowest parts of my chronic illness, helping me find a way to keep strong, and keep moving with my art.
Describe something about how your art practice and your “day job” interact.
I feel like my biggest job in this world is to keep being as true to my dreams as possible, because they’re always rooted in what I want for my community, what I dream of for my community, and the changes that I wish to see to make spaces feel like home for people who live with disability, people who are brown and black, people who are Queer.
What’s a challenge you’re facing, or have faced, in relation to this and/or what’s a benefit?
One of the biggest challenges I’ve been facing in the music scene is accessibility. Thinking about just basics from physical accessibility and also the level of disability awareness, and cultural awareness that organizations, promoters, and bookers have within their organizations… That’s the biggest challenge. It requires me to be sure of myself and what I deserve to receive in a space. There are all sorts of different responses I get when I advocate for what I need in those moments, sometimes they are receptive and sometimes they really show that there’s so much work to be done and it is quite disappointing or harmful. I think that challenge extends to the whiteness and cis-male dominated essence of the Vancouver music scene and beyond. I think the biggest answer to that challenge is decolonizing spaces and Indigifying the ways that we think. I often meet the challenge of even having the capacity to do that work. To do that extra job before I can do my job. Suddenly I am an advocate, a diversity and inclusion trainer for those people - putting in all the extra hours - and then I’m also performing and giving myself so generously.
A big gift of my art is that it supports me to release my own internalization of colonization. For me, music has been the space that allowed me to start talking about my chronic illness and feeling like I could possibly be accepted, and that my life still has value. My music has, in the darkest times, provided me with a breath, a little moment of relief, a reminder that some ancestors are watching over and helping me access a melody, or a lyric, and run with it. I create anthems to keep going.
Have you made, or created, anything that was inspired by something from your day job? Please describe.
If my “day job” is what I offer every day that I live this life, then my debut album is the creation I want to hold some space and intention for. I’m going into production for my first full length album, and it is rooting to bloom in 2023 for you all to hear. It will be a whole collection of songs that I have been performing throughout the year and a couple of new ones as well.
Angela Fama (she/they) is an artist, Death Conversation Game entrepreneur, photographer, musician, previous small-business server of many years (The Templeton, Slickity Jim’s etc.). They are a mixed European 2nd-generation settler currently working on the unceded traditional territory of the Coast Salish xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations.
Follow them at IG @angelafama IG @deathconversationgame or on their website www.angelafama.com
