The Mbira

MĀHEALANI UCHIYAMA is an award-winning dancer, musician, composer, choreographer, recording artist, teacher, and author. She is the founder and artistic director of the Māhea 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 (Iyanifa) of Ifa, a spiritual tradition of West Africa. She has studied Shona music for two decades both locally and in Zimbabwe, and her work with the mbira has been recognized by the City of Oakland's Cultural Funding Program and the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. She is the former President of the Board of Directors of World Arts West, is currently co-artistic director of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and serves as vice president of the nonprofit organization MBIRA. She is also the director of the African American Mbira Project, an initiative to introduce, support, and perpetuate the music of the mbira of Zimbabwe within the African American community. She is the author of Haumāna Hula Handbook for Students of Hawaiian Dance.