COMMUNITY PROFILE
Moonyeka
Director of House of Kilig
NAWA ANGEL “MOONYEKA”
they/them
FAMILY ORIGIN
EDUCATION
Honors Bachelors of Arts in Dance Studies w/ an emphasis on Digital Art and Experimental Media
HONORS
Tin House, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art
CXL, In Surreal Life, George Newsome Humanitarian Award
Mary Gates Research AwardArc FellowshipAndy Warhol Foundation's Precipice Fund Award
Ilocos Sur+Norte+Baguio
Sex Somatic Educator
ELVTR Game Writer - Highline Community College + University of Washington
For those of you who are unable to access elders due to colonial wound: sense your bodies, smell the sampaguita, the gumamela, the sabaw. Follow the rivers in your blood, speak towards your kilig, embrace eachother like a bundok would, hug harder, listen to the malunggay seed, learn to cook your favorite dish, read, speak the language imperfectly, dance in the club with ilaw hand styles, grieve, return to the islands without your blood family, wear the relikaryo hoop earring, send mutual aid to indigenous Philippine communities, choreograph a love letter to your heritage, write your own harana, or, read a book written by a Filipine/a/o/x author, better yet, author the book you keep seeking.
What does being Filipino mean to you, especially in a multicultural country like America?
For me it means honoring the archipelagic memory. It means committing to the kilig in my body and tuning to it as a compass towards deeper connection. This connectivity I know will flutter and unashame migration, walang hiya! It means my kapwa embodiment believes in the interwovenness of our collective liberations, it means that it's ready to wield my joy, wraths and pleasures like a bolo knife. It means the revolution that we've been practicing for eons will be juicy.
It also means holding compassionately all that my ancestors did to survive and also molting maladaptive (i.e. the more carceral aspects of utang na loob), oppressive inheritances, which starts with not putting my ancestors or descendants on a pedestal.
My Filipino-ness is devoted to queer and trans futurity, intergenerational worlds, the poor and working class, risque', a return to animism, imagination and talking story.
How do you identify with Filipino culture in your everyday life?
...by cackling like a bruja! by remembering the dharma in our pre-colonial spirituality! by doing something irreverent as an embodiment of sacred! practicing terrible humor and learning beki slang! identify by not identifying! tsismis as a safety practice, but never bully!
and more recently, I have been wrapping myself in a hand-me-down inabel baby blanket, one that I have been afraid to use, as to preserve it. I've been reworking preservation as having experiences that can shift the dna in my blood memory, rather than boarding something up in a corner, to never use, for fear of losing any thread of connection.