Spontaneous Vegetation

Nance Klehm, Radical Ecologist — Kumu June was born in Laupahoehoe on the Hamakua (Breath of the Ancestors) Coast on Hawaii Island. She began hula classes at age 6 with Louise Beamer and then danced off and on with other teachers like George Naope and Newton Hitchcock. She began studying seriously in 1988 with Kumu Hula Michael Pili Pang in his Halau Hula Ka No’eau (HHKN) in Waimea. Kumu June went through traditional ʻuniki ritual and graduated as ‘Olapa (Dancer) in 1994, ‘Olapa/Ho’opa’a (Dancer/Keeper of the Chants) in 1996 and Kumu Hula (Master Teacher) in June 2000. She also studied with Native Hawaiian elder and master la’au lapa’au (Hawaiian medicinal plants and spirituality) practitioner Henry Allen Auwae for five years until his death in 2001. She is the founder and director of Halau I Ka Pono hula school also a co-founder of the Zen Life & Meditation Center, Chicago with her husband Roshi Robert Joshin Althouse and was fully empowered as a Zen priest and Sensei (teacher) in the White Plum Li