Little Brown Language

wawoh! activates a new partnership between Little Brown Language and Derek Dizon, founder and steward of A Resting Place grief and loss cultural resource center in Seattle's Chinatown International District. Through this form of dance-incantation, we collaborate with the unique spirit energies of the space to embody hidden histories of migration and loss that continue to collectively move our communities in solidarity, grief and healing. wawoh! is a seed of a larger project on mourning rituals that includes an exploration of Filipino musical traditions of serenade.

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writing by Brittney Frantece for Variable West's Cliff Notes

The video clip is from a performance for Seattle Artists at the Center. We transformed the exhibition space of the Fisher Pavilion into an intimate theater setting. In this section called “Migracion” we experiment with the tarima (wooden foot drums from the Fandango music and dance tradition of Veracruz, Mexico), transformed into symbolic material we encounter through touch and feel. As we move with them, the tarima becomes drum, boat, land, stage; giving us new paths of access to our body’s hidden histories of land and language loss, migration, displacement, and resistance.

Choreography: Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra
Dancers: Naomi Macalalad Bragin, Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra

Soundscape: Naomi Macalalad Bragin

Live music by Ben Hunter
Costumes: Janelle Abbott

This video clip is from our debut performance for On The Boards North West New Works Festival. The dance-incantation "Hail Mary/Bendita Eres" re-imagines the Lord’s Prayer as a women’s resistance chant. We explore the entangling of religious conversion and language translation in the history of Spanish colonial encounter shared across our home/motherlands of Venezuela and the Philippines.

Dancers: Angel Alviar-Langley, Naomi Macalalad Bragin, Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra

Hail Mary Chant: Naomi Macalalad Bragin

This slideshow documents our BASE Artist Residency, in which we explored and defined our artistic research process in collaboration with a group of working artists. We gathered in process for 3 days/9 hours, culminating with an activation that blended elements of ritual and ceremony to weave ancestral histories and prepare the futurities we collectively envision.

Collaborating Artists: Akoiya Harris, Naomi Macalalad Bragin, Nia Amina Minor, jas moultrie, Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra, Aviona Rodriguez Brown

Facilitators: Naomi Macalalad Bragin, Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra

Sampalataya is a Tagalog word meaning acts of faith. This slideshow documents our altar-building process begun early in the COVID pandemic, using the altar as a material portal for healing connection in response to heightened feelings of isolation, confinement and traumatic loss. We created a daily ritual of walking in our neighborhoods and working at home, using the materials available in our environments, singing, and talking by phone. We opened up our process in Zoom workshops for two Seattle organizations: Communities Rise and Women Who Rock.

Altaristas: Naomi Macalalad Bragin and

Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra
Song "Sampalataya": Naomi Macalalad Bragin

• On the Boards, North West New Works Festival 2019 | video stills Global Media Lab

• On the Boards, Spectacle Spectacular Gala      2018 | photography Jonathan Vanderweit

• Base Arts Space, 12 Minutes Max

2018 | photography Catlin Griswell

Soundscape "Do you know there's a land?" by Naomi Macalalad Bragin