SAVE THE DATE: 4/17 & 4/18 at 7:30 pm

Friday & Saturday, April 17 & 18
Sliding-scale admission: $10 to $15

The Asian Arts Initiative is located at
1219 Vine St. Philadelphia, PA 19107
www.asianartsinitiative.org -or- (215) 557-0455

To buy your ticket today, click here.



In the spirit of the singular pronoun used in Tagalog language to signify he, she, or any person, Siya is the newest collaborative endeavor by Lovella Calica, L. Capco Lincoln, and Michelle Posadas – Tatlo Mestiz@s. They invite you for an evening of fun as they undress their investigation of gender and gender roles as Pilipino American artists through performance, poetry, and film.

The transplanted trio takes on this performance collaboration to discuss how gender identities have shaped their lives and encourage the audience to imagine a world where we can all live beyond the binaries that bind us. The show takes us through a Pilipino diasporic re-imagination of the many gender possibilities as it relates to our bodies, our families and our ancestral homeland. Let us imagine a gender fluid world by drawing upon the past and bringing genuine hope for the future.

Using their own personal histories and drawing from family experiences, they envision what it is like to be their brothers, fathers, mothers or grandmothers as they struggle through migration, adoption and male privilege. Through these intergenerational stories, they further investigate how living with gender binaries creates power and privilege that end up hurting those affected by imperialism and poverty. They relate it back to a history of both struggle and resistance especially among Pilipino women who have to endure such industries as mail order brides, state sponsored overseas workers and the U.S. military.

“We are dancing to a tune of contradictions and pressure discovering beauty and possibility, so we must learn to love ourselves wholly.” - Lovella Calica

Using multiple projections, video, shadow performance and monologues, Tatlo Mestiz@s take us through a journey of the harsh realities of gender oppression both here and in the Philippines. The Mestiz@s don’t leave us hopeless but instead speculate and imagine a world where not only pronouns are singular, but bodies and lives are born into endless possibilities in an open and gentle world.

For more information about the artists click here.

The night and the morning are the hardest

A video created by Tatlo Mestiz@s in December 2008

BUMALIK: returning, there and here

Saturday, October 4, 2008 at The Rotunda
Friday, March 7, 2008 at The Asian Arts Initiative



Inspired by their most recent travels to the Philippines, three local artist/activists will present new work which explores such questions as, “Why does one return to the land of their ancestors?” and “How does one return to their everyday life when the trip is over?” Using a uniquely Pin@y lens, Lovella Calica, L. Capco Lincoln and Michelle Posadas will unpack an evening of film, poetry and performance that weaves together reflections on the intersection of each artist's personal experience, identity, and the current state of their home countries.

For more information, images and video, click here.

about the artists

Lovella Calica - Writer, photographer

Lovella Rose is looking for her Lola. Losing laughter, smiles, and her Lola’s hands has inspired her to re-create memories made of clicks and frames, split seconds and imagination. Lovella is on adventure to transform her life and the spinning galaxy. Exchanging computer screens for more face to face interactions, building deeper connections with loved ones to inspire healthier, creative rituals, beliefs and bodies. Catch her if you can writing on walls, clicking at courage and dreaming of distant lands. Gathering community in the sun, kitchens and art spaces around the planet, she is excited to be blooming into spring!

L. Capco Lincoln - Video artist, performer

L. Capco Lincoln has spent the last ten years trying to articulate the in-between space of being mixed raced, queer and gender non-conformist. Born and raised in North Central Florida, grad school has brought Lincoln to Philadelphia to explore the endless possibilities of the moving image (a.k.a. film and video) at Temple University's Film and Media Arts department. Through the work with Tatlo Mestiz@s, Lincoln also has expanded into performance art, poetry, video installation and general multimedia collaboration. When not hanging out with Posadas and Lovella, Lincoln is working on fine tuning a participatory video production model where subjects and actors are also collaborators, writers and makers. Most currently, Lincoln is working on a documentary with Southerners On New Ground, a multi-racial, multi-issued LGBTQ organization working for economic and social justice across the South.

Michelle Posadas - Multi-media artist, performer

With the idea that telling stories through creating images is a vital part of social change movements, Michelle Posadas' work examines how our stories connect to something larger. Her practice is committed to creating work that directly responds to issues, such as the inauguration of President Obama, Huricane Katrina and the ever-growing number of political assassinations in the Philippines. Posadas brings together her skills as a visual artist and performer with illustration, projection, elaborate costumes, puppetry, song, dance, and so forth. The incarnation of Posadas’ work with Tatlo Mestiz@s has been pivotal to her growth as an artist. In addition, Michelle Posadas has notably worked with: eating the other, Shoddy Puppet Company, Spiral Q Puppet Theater, Dream Community, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Company, and Bread & Puppet Theater.