2022 was a year of growth & exploration. After those few years of "standing still", I was lucky enough to be accepted into a year-long artist development program called Laboratoires de Cirque. This program help me hone in on my unique creative visions by immersing myself in a range of performing arts languages. This practice included master classes with practitioners; attendance of and discussion about performances; and critical and contemplative writing. The program organized by TOHU in collaboration with Canadian presenting organizations in three provinces and supported by the Canada Council on the Arts.
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Artist Statement
My hybrid creativity combines different artistic disciplines and cultural practices, into unique new personal expressions with capacity for universal emotional resonance. The way out to my audience is to go in through my ancestors.
Having an ambiguous appearance masks my unique identity. Born in Canada to refugee parents from opposite sides of the Pacific, I’m Southeast Asian on my mother’s side from Laos. From my father’s Chilean side I connect with the complexity of being a descendent of both colonizer and colonized through Spanish and Mapuchin family.
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Hula Hooping is the root of my passion for movement. I established a safe space to explore my body through spiral form. I aspire to weave stories that are meaningful and vulnerable and push the status quo from the ground up.
I want to change the shape of what people think contemporary circus is. I am here to break norms, from body type representation to aesthetic conventions.
Just taking up space, being proud of where I come from and how I look breaks the status quo, which is a part of my generation’s purpose. I represent part of a growing wave of mixed-race children of immigrant refugee families born in so called Canada, and around the world in our increasingly post-colonial global community.
Community interconnectedness has been my inspiration from day one. The underground, the alternative, from the circus community to festivals, burlesque, drag, movement and dance— I wouldn't be here without the support of my communities. Community engagement, respect and trust is how I continue to express my art across many unique stages. It’s how I've built over a decade of professional experience.
"Professionalism is not equal to corporate conformity and there is no one path to becoming a professional circus artist."
My looks are distinctive in style and energy, skills and techniques, chameleonic embodiments of a range of characters I express. Being mixed race, makes hybrid creation a natural terrain for me. I like mixing things together: Dance and circus, urban and contemporary, serious and fun. Collaboration is key. it’s my variety of expressions that makes me the uncommon denominator!