Event Description: Join us at the Donkey Mill as we celebrate the closing of the Stories of Water exhibition with artist and creator of the portfolio exchange, Melanie Yazzie, Artist-in-Residence, Christian Burns along with several artists from the exhibition.
Created during his six month residency, Christian Burns will share a solo dance performance which draws on the historic character of the Donkey Mill as a living landscape for movement. Through personal memories of family, home, and near-death experiences, the work reflects on the fragile and cyclical nature of life and offers a quiet meditation on water, memory, and the shared human passage through loss, survival, and renewal.
IMPORTANT DATES
- Exhibition on View: March 28 – June 27, 2026
- Opening Reception: Saturday, April 4, 5:00 – 7:00pm
- Closing Reception: Saturday, June 27, 5:00 – 7:00pm
Featured Artwork by James Bailey, Water Dream Diving Water (detail), 25/25, Screenprint
About the Artists
As a printmaker, painter, and sculptor, Melanie Yazzie’s work draws upon her rich Diné (Navajo) cultural heritage. Her work follows the Diné dictum “walk in beauty” literally, creating beauty and harmony. As an artist, she works to serve as an agent of change by encouraging others to learn about social, cultural, and political phenomena shaping the contemporary lives of Native peoples in the United States and beyond. Her work incorporates both personal experiences as well as the events and symbols from Diné culture. Her work is informed and shaped by personal experiences.
Drawing on thirty years of classical and experimental performance practices, Christian Burns creates works that defy simple categories. Known as an improviser, choreographer, and interdisciplinary artist, he strives, through any means necessary, to conjure glimpses into the wonder and fragility of the human condition.
His formal training from The School of American Ballet has been complemented by 25 years of contact improvisation and somatic movement practice. He has been commissioned for his choreography and master teaching by dance companies and universities throughout the US, Europe, and Asia and has been awarded numerous fellowships, residencies, grants, and commissions.
Mahalo nui loa: This exhibition and programs are made possible by the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the County of Hawaiʻi Waiwai Grant, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Hiroaki Elaine & Lawrence Kono Foundation, Hōlualoa Inn, and our community of individual donors.
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