About —
get to know Moonyeka
nawa angel a.h., widely known as Moonyeka, is a chimeric creator working across containers of performance, qt nightlife, writing, experimental media and the divine. They're a settler fluttering between their sprawling roots amidst Tongva, Chumash, Chinook, and Duwamish lands. Moonyeka conjures queer erotic joy, animism, Ilocano imagination, and beyond. They center kilig as a compass to imagine thriving worlds for their communities. Moonyeka has the honor of homing into their interdisciplinary instigations as an Artistic Director of House of Kilig.
i was never the siren (2024) is a film re-myth of the Siren archetype; the first installment of their multimedia project 'Harana for the Aswang' realized with House of Kilig collaborators.
waling-waling palpitations is the second installment (forthcoming 2025), debuting as a hybrid-book with live-visual-dance elements along their book tour.
nawa draws upon queer and trans performance technologies in their writing, infusing nightlife, icon-myth-legend, drag, and kink. They work across a spectrum of genre: biomythography, hybrid, and the game writing. Recent publications include their multiverse of work centering Waling-Waling Orchids in smoke and mold; am i hot enough to kill?, an excerpt of (w)horrific hybrid prose, is featured in The Holy Hour anthology by Working Girls Press. They're currently a curated writer for Khôra.
Moonyeka’s past interdisciplinary performance works have been presented in a spectrum of “high” and “low” brow art spaces and contexts that span festivals, living rooms, museums, queer night clubs, in diaspora and beyond. They have been the recipient of the George Newsome Humanitarian Award, Mary Gates Research Award, Arc Fellowship Grantee, Tina LaPadula Fellowship, Seattle Dances’ DanceCrush, Powerful Voices’ “Year of the Answer”, Precipice Fund Award and represented Seattle in KQED’s If Cities Could Dance docuseries.
Moonyeka’s dance and movement foundations found roots in the Street Styles Communities of South King County and Seattle where they engaged in cypher practices and freestyle forms such as Popping, Tutting, and Animation. They studied modern dance, improvisational methods, and dance ethnography at the University of Washington where they hold an Honors B.A. in Dance Studies with an emphasis in DXARTS production. Moonyeka is proud to be raised by PNW’s QTBIPOC show girl, burlesque and nightlife community.
Pre covid-19 Moonyeka directed WHAT’S POPPIN’ LADIEZ?! (a femme & woman centered street styles festival), LIL BROWN GIRLS CLUB (a movement based mentorship program for young girls of color), and organized (e)merge: a movement based healing intensive for dance communities and beyond. They continue to serve as an art educator for youth with programs like Young Choreographer’s Lab in the PNW uplifting pedagogy that connects ancestral skills, boundary setting, and choreography as a tool to liberation.