Intelligent Movement: Locked into the Dynamic, Improvisational, Synchronized, Collective Overstandings of Hip Hop and Heʻenalu as Language, Literature, and Literacy

Abstract

Intelligent Movement advocates for the dynamic, improvisational, synchronized, collective overstandings of Hip Hop (deejaying, emceein, b-boyin, beatboxin, and graffiti) and heʻenalu (surfing) performance to be read as language, preserved as literature, and taught as critical literacies through the use of remix methodologies and multimedia. The first half of the dissertation (I-IV) lays out the theoretical foundation for DISCO pedagogy, which argues for a shift from the foundations of persuasive argument to fusion models of felt experience derived from deejay culture and heʻenalu, I provide an extensive analysis of traditional surfing moʻolelo, and performative African American Protest Literature to reveal alternative epistemologies and philosophies such as ubuntu, akamai, and ma ka hana ka ‘ike that prioritize relational experience over mediated consensus, and reprogram traditional norms through deviant, impolite improvisational performance. Drawing from Ngūgī wa Thiong’o’s reorganization of the literacy space, Foucault’s “subjugated knowledges” and Dwight Conquergood’s radical performance studies interventions, I argue that once taken seriously, DISCO can compete with the encryptions of Christendom and the colonizing mindset especially as the visual, aural, and kinetic aspects of writing composition are elevated to the same level of authority as alphabetic word. The second half of the dissertation (V.) is a sample of the performative literatures I propose in the first. As a lifelong member of these revolutionary subcultures, I combine memoir with substantial oral histories, over a decade of weekly surf news articles I wrote for publications such as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and a daily surf report that I have maintained on Twitter since 2008 to compose non-linear biographies of two surf spots: Pipeline and Ala Moana Bowls. I offer fresh approaches to life writing, highlighting geographic space and the outstanding performances taking place there to provide a critical reading across the barrel riding genre of heʻenalu on Oʻahu for over three decades. I apply the same template in my Hip Hop section to advocate for musical literacy and deejay culture’s dependence on transition effects, which hold the five elements together, linking them to heʻenalu and multimedia literacies. Subsequently, I provide new methods for documenting, archiving, and analyzing improvisational performance extending from my case studies of he‘enalu (surfing) and Hip Hop to the subcultures of 3-D animation, film, gaming, and other popular performative networks and new media.