Hoʻākea Source 2025 Grant Awardees
Colleen Kimura
Nā Leo o Kapa
Avalon Paradea
OUR JOY iS SACRED
Lani Punani
Babaeng Babae Na
Hercules Goss-Kuehn
The Renkon Project
Noe Tanigawa
I OLA KANALOA
Davianna McGregor & Craig Neff
E Ola Keoneʻōʻio
Gigi Axelrode2025 Grant Recipient
E Ola Keoneʻōʻio (working title) is a short dance film shot on Maui (Gigi’s ʻohana one hānau) that blends contemporary dance with archival and testimonial footage documenting community opposition to desecration and restricted beach access in and near Keoneʻōʻio—a bay in the ahupuaʻa of Kalihi, within the moku of Honuaʻula, on the island of Maui. This film works to uncover the real history and moʻolelo of this wahi (it is commonly referred to as La Perouse after a French explorer), Gigi’s own ancestral connection to it, and how the waters of Keoneʻōʻio remember all that has come before us and will continue to remember after we are gone.
Brigitte (Gigi) Leilani Axelrode (she/her/ ʻo ia) is a hapa Kanaka ʻŌiwi artist, educator, and scholar. In 2017 Brigitte graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a BFA in both Communication studies and Dance. After graduation she worked professionally in Los Angeles as a concert and commercial dancer. Brigitte currently resides on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi where she is pursuing a Master’s Degree at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa in Political Science with a graduate certificate in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS). She also works as a Graduate Assistant in the WGSS Department teaching classes such as Introduction to Women’s Studies and Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies.
Brigitte has presented scholarly and artistic work at the National Women's Studies Association conference, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the American Association of Geographers, and the Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center Student Conference.
In 2022, Brigitte choreographed an experimental short film, A Tale of Two Sisters, that premiered at Hawaiʻi International Film Festival and streamed on Hawaiian Airlines. Her choreography and live dance performances have debuted in Los Angeles and internationally in both Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia at Maoriland Film Festival and the International Symposium for Electronic Arts in 2024.
Brigitte is committed to using an Indigenous feminist framework when approaching all artistic and scholarly work as a means of confronting the structures that censor and disconnect us from our bodies, memories, and each other. She moves with the intention of using her art as liberatory storytelling with and for Pasifika peoples and beyond.
Brigitte (Gigi) Leilani Axelrode (she/her/ ʻo ia) is a hapa Kanaka ʻŌiwi artist, educator, and scholar. In 2017 Brigitte graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a BFA in both Communication studies and Dance. After graduation she worked professionally in Los Angeles as a concert and commercial dancer. Brigitte currently resides on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi where she is pursuing a Master’s Degree at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa in Political Science with a graduate certificate in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS). She also works as a Graduate Assistant in the WGSS Department teaching classes such as Introduction to Women’s Studies and Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies.
Brigitte has presented scholarly and artistic work at the National Women's Studies Association conference, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the American Association of Geographers, and the Lāhui Hawaiʻi Research Center Student Conference.
In 2022, Brigitte choreographed an experimental short film, A Tale of Two Sisters, that premiered at Hawaiʻi International Film Festival and streamed on Hawaiian Airlines. Her choreography and live dance performances have debuted in Los Angeles and internationally in both Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia at Maoriland Film Festival and the International Symposium for Electronic Arts in 2024.
Brigitte is committed to using an Indigenous feminist framework when approaching all artistic and scholarly work as a means of confronting the structures that censor and disconnect us from our bodies, memories, and each other. She moves with the intention of using her art as liberatory storytelling with and for Pasifika peoples and beyond.