FRIDAY-SATURDAY

>> A UH dance professor turns collected ideas into a performance

Dancer Peiling Kao is new to Hawaii’s diverse dance scene. The native of Taiwan was appointed assistant professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa’s Theater and Dance Department in 2016, replacing the retired Peggy Gaither Adams.

“I’ve been studying dance in various forms — ballet, modern dance, improvisation, and Western dance history and Asian dance history,” said Kao, who studied dance since childhood and had an acclaimed career in the San Francisco Bay Area before coming here. “My main focus here is improvisation and interdisciplinary collaboration in choreography.”

She’s taken a novel approach to appeal to local audiences, requesting ideas, or “prompts,” from Hawaii’s dance community for her to develop into a dance. She chose 20 of them to create the piece, called “You Are Here.”

“A prompt can be a language, a sentence or imagery,” she said. “It can be a direction into space or time. People sent me things like ‘Chaos of mind’ or ‘Stillness of the body.’ A very challenging one was called ‘liminality’ — it’s like ‘in between’ — which I struggled with for a long time. It’s more for me like a state, rather than movement vocabulary.”

The performance includes a trio work starring local dancers Madelyn Biven, Maria Houar and Malia Yamamoto, and another solo work, “per[mute]ing.”

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

>> 3 unique shows offer a bevy of hula and Hawaiian music

Kuana Torres Kahele is celebrating the wonders of Hawaiian music and hula this weekend with “Kuana’s Winter Wonderland,” giving three unique shows Friday through Sunday at the Hawaii Theatre. He’ll be joined by different combinations of singers, musicians and halau hula each night.

Highlights tonight include Kahele performing with the Kuana Torres Kahele Band and a guest appearance by 2018 Grammy Award nominee Josh Tatofi. Hula will be represented by several halau, including Halau Na Mamo O Puuanahulu under kumu Sonny Ching and Lopaka Igarta-De Vera.

Saturday night, Kahele takes the audience back to his earliest days in Waikiki with special guests Akoni & Da Palapalai Patch. He’ll also play with Ioane Burns and Glenn Mayeda, and Lukela Keale will join him in singing “Lei O Piilani.” Kamaka Kukona and Halau Ka Hanu Lehua are one of several halau hula that will be performing.

On Sunday, Kahele joins Kapulanakehau Tamure and Keao Costa for a long-awaited reunion of Na Palapalai. Kahele will also reunite with Napua Greig to sing the title song of the 2014 short film “Lava.” Greig joins Na Palapalai for a hula number, “Nani Nani, Nani Venuse,” and kumu hula Te Hani Gonzado is the trio’s featured dancer on a medley, “Ka Manu/Manu Oo.”

There will be lots of hula all three nights.

— John Berger, Star-Advertiser

TUESDAY

>> Indie rock icons The Shins bound for The Republik

Indie rock pioneers The Shins brings their bright, melodic sound to The Republik next week. It will be a homecoming of sorts.

Formed in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1996 and led by frontman James Mercer – who was born in Honolulu to a military family and married a Maryknoll graduate – The Shins had a breakout with their debut LP “Oh, Inverted World” in 2001. One of the tunes from the album, “New Slang,” became a pop culture phenomenon, used on the television shows “The Sopranos” and “Scrubs.” Rolling Stone called it the album’s “most affecting song,” describing it as “a shuffling folk ballad with a spaghetti-western feel and a somber melody.”

The tune would be used, to some people’s dismay, on a McDonald’s commercial, but it was called a “life-changing” song when it was heard in the 2004 Zach Braff film “Garden State.” The film’s soundtrack, which included “Caring for Creepy” from “Inverted World,” won the Grammy for best soundtrack.

The Shins’ second album, “Chutes Too Narrow,” was released to critical acclaim in 2003 and was named one of the top 200 albums of the year by online music site Pitchfork. That was followed up by “Wincing The Night Away,” in 2007, which got the band its second Grammy nomination.

Mercer is joined by Yuuki Matthews (bass), Jon Sortland (drums), Mark Watrous (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Casey Foubert (guitar) and Patti King (keyboards). They’re touring with The Shins’ fifth album, “Heartworms,” released in March.

WEDNESDAY

>> Jazz bassist, singer Thiroux to perform

Katie Thiroux, one of the most exciting young talents in jazz, brings her virtuosic bass and vocals and thoughtful compositions to an intimate performance at The Arts at Mark’s Garage.

Thiroux’s recently released sophomore album “Off Beat,” received four stars from Downbeat and All About Jazz, which called it “glorious.” The album fulfilled the promise she displayed in her debut album “Introducing Katie Thiroux,” which was named to NPR’s best debut albums list in 2015.

The Los Angeles native started violin lessons at age 4 but switched to bass at 8, immediately finding an affinity for it. “I just loved everything about it, like scales and classical music,” she told Neon Jazz. “Pretty much all my free time was taken up by either playing, practicing, being in orchestras or after-school programs, or just listening to music.”

She also studied singing with jazz vocalist Tierney Sutton and later at the prestigious jazz program at Berklee School of Music. The diversity of training shows up in her playing, where she can swing like bass masters of old including her idol, Ray Brown, skat like Ella Fitzgerald, and create avant-garde solos on tunes like Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oh What a Beautiful Morning.”

Thiroux’s group includes drummer Matt Witek and the terrific pianist Justin Kauflin, a blind musician featured in the award-winning documentary “Keep On Keepin’ On.”