My fascination with the human body and personal drive to explore the body’s fullest potential led me to becoming a dancer and eventually, a capoeirista.

I’ve been dancing all my life but it wasn’t until I began my pre-med studies at the University of Minnesota in 1995 that I started taking formal dance classes. At first dance was simply a form of stress release, but I eventually found myself immersed in all kinds of dance forms including jazz, modern, contact-improvisation, West African, and afro-modern, to name a few. In 2000, I finally returned to Oahu (my beloved birthplace), and started studying butoh, aerial dance, and eventually, hula. It was my training with an afro-Caribbean dance troupe that led me to my first capoeira class taught by Mestre Kinha at Capoeira Hawaii in 2002. I instantly fell in love with capoeira and can’t imagine life without it today.

Mestre Kinha granted me with my instructora cordel (instructor belt) in 2008. Since then I’ve had the honor of teaching capoeira classes at the Kailua Movement Studio, Hawaii Tokai International College, Kapiolani Community College and Boca Hawaii. I love sharing the art of capoeira with others – through it one gains total well-being: self-confidence, flexibility, strength…not only physical strength, but mental and emotional strength as well. I take great pride in being able to pass on Mestre Kinha’s teaching philosophy in which capoeira is also used as a medium to teach important life values such as releasing the ego, respect for oneself and others, cooperation, patience, and ohana (family).

I am also an instructor/aerialist with Samadhi Hawaii and dance with Iona Contemporary Dance Theater, Tau Dance Theater, and Ka La Onohi Mai O Haehae. And yes, I do have a day job/s! I am the Education Program Manager at the Hawaii Nature Center (non-profit environmental education center), and an instructor of anthropology at Kapiolani Community College.

Current Classes

Email: jamienak@hawaii.edu for more info