Beckoning Summer: Performances by Hairbone and Moonyeka, with the House of Kilig

Experience two transformational performances inside the mesmerizing exhibition Raúl de Nieves: A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder…. This special event will feature a performance by Raúl de Nieves as Hairbone, the dynamic duo featuring himself and Jessie Stead. With roots in drag, punk, and queer sensibility, their presence will fill the gallery with a reverberating energy traversing transcendental planes.

Hairbone’s performance will be preceded by a sound and movement activation by Pacific Northwest-based Moonyeka joined by House of Kilig, a trans and queer diaspora-centered collective, with live sound mixing by Exesive.  The collective’s embodied practice transmutes the myths and magic of ancestral archetypes into enthralling performances that explore relationships between past and present and the dynamic multiplicity of being.   

In addition to the performances, the Henry will be celebrating the launch of the new publication that accompanies the exhibition. This richly illustrated publication includes essays by the exhibition’s curators, Nina Bozicnik, senior curator at the Henry, and Risa Puleo, an independent curator, as well as de Nieves’s multi-stanza poem written in conversation with the installation.

From 2-4 PM enjoy wine curated by Otherworld Wine in the Henry’s sculpture court.

Performances begin at 3 PM. 

Hairbone is the New York-based power duo of artists Raúl de Nieves and Jessie Stead. For more than a decade, Hairbone has inflicted their carnivalesque live shows upon audiences ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to dozens of ephemeral basement venues. Each unique, narrative multimedia performance features frontman de Nieves inhabiting new personae in a sculptural actionist mode, brandishing oversized, text-emblazoned props as if they were picket signs, synthesized with layers of Stead’s synthetic percussion and tangled electronic sampling. A protest music without didacticism, Hairbone often proceeds to destroy their own constructions as their improvised, near-opera burlesque freak shows unfurl.

nawa a.h., known as "Moonyeka" (they/he/she) is a chimeric creator who takes shape in and beyond containers of interdisciplinary performing art, writing, and brujxeria. With a specialty in offering sensually sacred dance and movement-based storytelling experiences, Moonyeka's performance, community organizing, and divination work centers kapwa, maarte, and kilig as a compass to imagine worlds where their communities can thrive. They’re currently developing an upcoming work, Harana For The Aswang,an interdisciplinary performance work centered on the research of harana, a Filipinx serenade song form rooted in courtship and grief rituals.

nawa draws upon queer and trans performance technologies in their writing, infusing nightlife, icon-myth-legend, drag, tease, and kink. You can find them frolicking in a spectrum of writing fields and genres such as biomythography, hybrid-wtfness, and the game writing industry. They were recently published with their multiverse of work centering Waling-Waling Orchids in smoke and mold. Their work, 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 have the honor of being the Artistic Director of The House of Kilig and a founding space tender of Paruparo - a QTPOC haven in Portland, OR.

House of Kilig is a trans and queer diaspora-centered collective that utilizes 𝘬𝘢𝘱𝘸𝘢 and 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘨 as a compass in pursuit of interdisciplinary art creation, teaching artistry, and community organizing that manifests a world where QT folx across diaspora can thrive. The House of Kilig brings forth embodiment practices and divine performance technologies to center joy, celebration, and generative containers.

𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘨 is a Tagalog word that describes the somatic experience of feeling butterflies in one’s stomach when met with exhilaration, elation, or excitement towards a person, idea, place, or thing.

Exesive is a queer and trans multidisciplinary artist from Quito, Ecuador. They grew up with music thumping on the walls during family celebrations, everyday on the streets, at school, the bus, the club, and making radio mixes on cassettes. With the Andes in their heart, they have been hosting wholesome slut positive parties for almost a decade. They can belt out with their voice, lure you in with their erotic style performances, and can dance till sunrise if the music resonates. They are a survivor joyfully committed to liberation movements, erotic discovery, and bridging celebration and struggle. Offering their music as a healing-scape, their dj sets feature the old and the new, bringing generations together. Today they are exploring even more with sound, dance, and taking their performance to another sonic and erotic level.