This piece, now known as SISTER VOICES, was, in its original form, a simulation of the heart of the jungle coming to life. To be honest, this first lens was based and envisioned purely off of the drum and gong work in the recording Trees That Speak by Suzie Ibarra. In my mind, I likened this vision to that of forest diwatas, otherworldly, knowing, and unbound by the chains of colonialism or, even, conventional society for that matter. I firmly believe that SISTER VOICES would have remained an exploration of this image if it weren’t for one thing and one thing only— the karagatan, or the ocean.
Noelle Marie is a creative and academic that has centered her life around the intersection of narrative and performative praxis with cultural theory. Most interested in re-memory, indigenization, and intergenerational language, she pursues storytelling through fictive writing and movement artistry. She uses these dual forms to better understand the diasporic, post-colonized life, and how it has affected her as a Filipina American.
Kristin Santiago is an artist that moves with grace, patience, and respect— this last being amongst the most important and distinguishable qualities that she holds within her artistry. A transplant from the East Coast, she has come to Los Angeles to challenge herself artistically and personally. Perhaps the most courageous of the three, she has fearlessly shared herself with the world.
Nikki Mae is an explorer of expression, using various mediums to fine-tune her stories. Her birthing process is elongated, but every finalized form often results as an explosive, poignant creation. Her journey has been an inspiring one and continues to be so as she juggles the art of motherhood with the art of artistic living.
It has been a long time coming. It has arrived right on time. When I ruminate on the concept of Gunita, the concept of radical memory, what comes to me are visions of reclamation, the aligning of purpose between past and present, ancestral body to modern body, and the translation of indigenous warrior via the indigenized to the westernized. Questions that come to me course through these primary thoughts: What of our culture remains today? What of our culture has shifted, morphed, and changed from then to now?
