Kumu Anna Lisa Abuan McKeon

Los Angeles, California, US

Kumu Anna Lisa Kalauokekupukupu Espiritu Abuan McKeon is wife, mom, tūtū, and everyone's auntie. A cultural practitioner, teacher, and visionary devoted to the preservation, perpetuation, and living expression of ancestral wisdom. Rooted in the sacred traditions of Hawai‘i and enriched through a lifetime of cross-cultural study, she carries a lineage that bridges dance, ceremony, land stewardship, and earth-based healing. What began as a love for movement became a lifelong path of culture, connection, and responsibility. She began her journey in ballet, studying under Joan Golden, with training rooted in the Vaganova and Cecchetti methods, and continued with hula Hālau He Inoa No Ipu Lei Manu under the direction of Denise Bigelow. From there, she was called to deepen her studies across Polynesia. Training in Tahitian dance and drumming with Mapuhi Tuku Tekurio of Tekurio Nui, and Samoan fire knife dance with Mel Liufau of Nonosina. For Kumu Anna Lisa, dance has never been about performance alone. It is a sacred vessel for lineage. She is the founder of Kūhai Hālau Nā Liko Kupukupu i Ka Lani Pā ‘Ōlapa Kahiko, a hula school grounded in the preservation and living practice of traditional Hawaiian knowledge, values, and ceremony. She completed her Uniki (sacred graduation rites) under the guidance of Loea Kawaikapuokalani Frank Hewett, who entrusted her with the kuleana to carry this work forward with integrity. Through this lineage, hula is lived, not just learned. Holding genealogy, language, history, and a profound spiritual relationship to the land. Within her hālau, students from keiki to kūpuna are guided beyond movement. Chant, protocol, plant wisdom, and deep connection to nature are woven into the practice. Her teaching invites people to remember where they come from and how to live in the right relationship with the world around them. That relationship extends to the land itself. Kumu Anna Lisa integrates land stewardship, eco-conscious building, and regenerative living into her work, emphasizing that how we care for the Earth is inseparable from how we carry culture. Every choice, how we build, grow, and live, becomes part of the practice. Her path has also led her into earth-based healing traditions through her studies with Sage L. Maurer of The Gaia School of Healing and the lineage of Marysia Miernowska of The School of the Sacred Wild. Through these wise women teachings, she continues to deepen her relationship with plants, ancestral knowledge, and holistic, land-based healing. At her core, Kumu Anna Lisa is a bridge-builder, bringing people together across cultures, generations, and geographies. She has cultivated meaningful relationships with teachers, students, and communities around the world. Her work honors the past, tends to the present, and helps ensure that future generations remain deeply connected to culture, to one another, and to the living Earth.

Member since

2026