RESEARCH

 My current research explores the healing and liberatory potential of creating and performing neo-burlesque within QTBIPOC communities. Through interdisciplinary methods and art-making, I investigate how neo-burlesque is a form of worldbuilding where marginalized communities create counterspaces where QTBIPOC desires, and identities can be expressed, affirmed, and celebrated. Grounded in DIY methods and informed by disability justice, decolonization, and queer joy, my work considers how embodied performance practices and community-centred art making can challenge dominant narratives around sexuality, race, and belonging.

This research builds on work from my MA in Creative Arts Therapies (Art Therapy), where I completed the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada/SSHRC-funded project Healing in the Margins: Art Therapy and Racial Minority Clients. In this project, I developed a critical framework for examining the therapeutic experiences of BIPOC clients engaging with art therapy. The project was recognized nationally as a finalist in the SSHRC Storytellers Competition.

Alongside my academic work, my artistic research has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and presented across Canada. My piece Walang Hiya is a long-form burlesque piece exploring Filipina sexuality through traditional Filipino costuming, dance, and theatrical storytelling. Addressing the legacies of 300 years of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, and the resulting constraints placed on female sexuality, the piece contrasts these histories with the sex-positive ethos of burlesque, while also reflecting on the racialization and fetishization of Filipina bodies in the diaspora.

Walang Hiya notably incorporates the Filipino folk dance Tinikling (bamboo pole dancing) with burlesque movement and aesthetics. Originally commissioned by CanAsian Dance and presented by Tangente Dance and Festival Accès Asie, the work has toured nationally and will premiere an expanded 40-minute version at Tangente in Montreal in spring 2026.