Toni M. Kemehana Pasion

Toni M. Kemehana Pasion (she/siya) is an Inter-disciplinary Artist, Creative Director, and Educator of Dance and Culture. Her focal points are on bridging between traditional and contemporary art and culture, transformational art through process, the power of narratives, dance as a method of conveyance/convergence/transmission, and dance as a spiritual practice. 

Toni is the Founder of Pasion Performance Group;  Lecturer of Dance at the University of California, Riverside; Company Choreographer at Salt Dance Studios; Advisory Board Member for Mental Health/Healing Arts curriculum development for Pinaysphere 501(c)3; and new lead Hula Instructor and Owner of Aloha Hula Studio (Rancho Cucamonga). She is also a writer-contributor in the anthology Upon Shared Waters, edited by Noelle Falcis Math in relation with the Pacific Island Ethnic Arts Museum and associated artists. 

Recently, Toni founded A Stage of Our Own I.E,  a communal art gallery in the historic Downtown Riverside. ASOO was originally founded as a performance collective in Hālau O Haumea at Hawai'inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi in 2017.

Toni holds a Masters of Arts degree in Dance with an emphasis in Culture and Performance Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, degrees in Asian American Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies from the University of California, Riverside, and an Associates degree in Liberal Arts from Santa Monica College. She has also completed coursework in Māori Studies and Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau.  

As a movement practitioner, Toni has danced hula since middle school with a hālau in Culver City, California. It is here that she experienced the valuable influence of cultural practice, dance, and development at a formative age. She continued her journey learning from Kumu Kealiʻi Ceballos, Kumu Aulii Mitchell, Kumu Tony Conjugacion. Her journey is intertwined with dancing and learning Filipino folk dance since 7 years old with Kayamanan Ng Lahi. With curiousity and dedication to the study of how all things are connected, Toni also studies Filipino Martial Arts and Yoga. She continues to be in conversation and application of dance and culture’s life lessons, learning with all walks of life, as she is moved by truth, experience, faith, and purpose. It is from a great respect for her teachers, practitioner elders, and the wisdom of culture that she strives to be an effective and impactful teacher. 

Toni is certified in Mental Health First Aid for Youth through Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA), and has completed the Family-to-Family Education program through the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) .  

Toni’s work has been presented at the University of California - Riverside, University of California - Los Angeles, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Arizona State University, University of Redlands, Western Washington University, Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum, and more.  She has conducted workshops and curated performances at Pieter Performance Space, Torrance Cultural Arts Center, Halikha Contemporary FilipinX Studio, Women’s Creative Center for Work, Self-Help Graphics, Carson Civic Center, Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA) and more.  Internationally, she has performed and/or conducted workshops in the Philippines, Germany, Aotearoa New Zealand, Guåhan (Guam), Samoa, United Kingdom, Hawaiʻi, Arizona, Manhattan, San Francisco to Los Angeles, and more.   

Toni envisions safe, critical, creative, generative, and autonomous spaces where spectrum and intergenerational conversations are held, and sees art as a way of development and possibility.