Creating A Brighter Future For Houston Since 1977
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SEPTEMBER @ TBH CENTER!
ANI/MALAYAWORKS
Ani/MalayaWorks is a collaboration between Filipinx mother, Anito Gavino and budding filmmaker daughter, Malaya Ulan. Together they actively create anti-colonial performance art as a portal to connecting to ancestral land, spirit, and community. Through collaboration, the mother-daughter duo invitesartists from where they
 
perform the work, to partake in the performance, allowing the stories to morph by creating a more dynamic and ever-morphing storytelling practice. Through a merging of contemporary and folk dance, poetry, and film, they work to empower the nuanced Filipino-born immigrant and Filipino-American voice.
SINIWALI
PERFORMED BY ANI/MALAYAWORKS
Friday, September 22nd | 7:30 PM
@ MECA TBH Center
$5 per ticket(as part of our Hispanic Heritage Month special sale)
Buy Tickets HERE
Siniwali is a research to performance highlighting the many interconnecting stories between Mexico and the Philippines that date back before Spanish colonialism to post-migration to the United States. It dives into cross-cultural dialogues by studying the movements of indigenous people (Panay Bukidnon), people of Mexico and many others who broke bread, fought, celebrated, and coexisted as brothers and sisters, even through pre-colonization.
This project was supported by the National Performance Network(NPN) Artist Engagement Fund. For more info, visit www.npnweb.org
Siniwali is funded in part by the City of Houston Through Houston Arts Alliance  
ANI
Anito Gavino (formerly known as Ani) is a Filipinx multidisciplinary artist, movement scholar, archivist, guerrilla artist, and cultural worker indigenous to the island of Panay, Philippines. Currently residing on Lenape lands/Philadelphia, Gavino directs her mother+daughter project-based company Ani/MalayaWorks, created as a platform for community-based and anti-colonial physical theater.
As a dancer, Gavino’s highlights include dancing with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Latin Ballet of Virginia Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, and Ananya Dance Theater. Through her concert dance career, she was able to work with Katherine Dunham, Baba Chuck Davis, Donald McKayle, Dianne McIntyre, Alonzo King, Eleo Pomare, Antonio Hidalgo Paz, and more. As a maker, Gavino unapologetically tells embodied and digital stories as a catalyst for discourse, critical inquiry, and socio-political change. She is a recipient of the 2021 Leeway Transformation Award and Career Transition for Dancers, a grant awardee of the MAPfund 2020, 2022, National Performance Network, Leeway Art for Social Change, Scribe Video Center, Velocity Fund Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Independent Public Media Fund, and more. Her works have been performed at the Barnes Foundation, Bronx Academy of Art and Dance, Painted Bride, Suzanne Roberts Theater, Dance Place, and more. Anito is also a writer for ThINKing Dance, an MFA graduate of Hollins University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Muhlenberg College. More information can be found on www.anigavino.com.To learn more about Ani/MalayaWorks, CLICK HERE
MALAYA
Malaya Ulan (Free Rain) is a fifteen-year-old Filipino-American activist, community organizer, and international artist. Malaya Ulan utilizes art mediums such as poetry, dance, film, and visual art to share and empower her voice.
She has received awards from Mighty Writers and was awarded the Gold Key for the Scholastic Art and Writing competition in Philadelphia. She has also participated in WHYY’s journalism programs on full scholarship and has been an intern with Scribe Video Center’s Documentary History Project for Youth for two second years, and won the Gary Smalls Award for her work film, She Said: Art is Activism. The Film features Ursula Rucker, Anito Gavino, Elaine Holton, and Donna Grace.
Ulan has performed in spaces such as the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Movement Research at Judson Dance Theatre, Barnes Foundation, Painted Bride, Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Outlet Dance Festival, Swarthmore University, Multicultural Education in Counseling through the Arts, and a dance concert at Festive Walk (Philippines). She performs with her mother, Anito Gavino, in a dance company, Ani/MalayaWorks. Malaya Ulan has also co-produced a collection of poetry and writings, De-Scribing, with her mother. She has released her solo poetry collection, Ulan- When My Tears Turn into Roses.
While in the Philippines for the summer of 2023, Malaya Ulan wrote and performed her first narrative theatrical script for puppetry based on Panay-Bukidnon mythology at the Panublion Museum. Malaya Ulan is the runner-up for Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia 2023 and is now preparing for an upcoming show on October 7, 2023, as a featured artist of AAI’s Invasive Species project. Outside of Malaya Ulan’s artistic resume, she also led her school, SLA @ Beeber, for a school walkout against issues in the School District of Philadelphia during the year 2023. More information can be found on www.malayaulan.com NOW SHOWING AT MECA TBH:Join us for Carabinas y Guitarras, a solo exhibition by Mauro Murillo.
Show runs from September 8th – 30th.
On view Monday – Friday2 – 8 PMat MECA @ TBH Center,333 S. Jensen Dr. Houston, TX 77003  
Carabinas y Guitarras is an exhibition featuring the objects, rifles and guitars, as symbols of two significant historical eras in Mexico: the Revolution and the Golden Age of Cinema. Inspired by film director Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernandez, who, after participating in the Mexican Revolution at the age of ten, saw cinema as an artistic medium to both stimulate critical thinking and combat corruption within politics. I echo this concept, emphasizing the potency of art as a tool for education, thought-provocation, entertainment, and celebration.
Artist Bio
Murillo was born in Coahuila, Mexico and moved to San Antonio, TX in 1995. After graduating in early 2020 with an Associates Degree in Communication Design at San Antonio College, he decided to pursue his true passion in the fine arts. He started his career by painting in acrylics on large canvases, and had his first solo show, Personajes Mexicanos, in 2021 at Bear & Ink Gallery at the Upstairs Studios at Blue Star in San Antonio, TX.
**NEW CLASS AT TBH**
VISUAL ART
Art | Faculty: Margarita Ariza (Ages 5 – 8)Tuesday and Thursday | 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM$60 / MonthArt | Faculty: Margarita Ariza (Ages 9 – 12)Tuesday and Thursday | 6:15 PM – 7:15 PM$60 / Month
For more info on classes offered at MECA and MECA@TBH, click HERE HAPPENING IN OUR CITY: 
For more info about this event, click HEREMECA’s work to provide year-round, high quality arts education, social services and vigorous academic support is made possible by generous contributions from the following donors:
 
MECA @ Dow School713 – 802 – 9370
1900 Kane StreetHouston, TX 77007
MECA @ TBH Center
713 – 222 – 1213
333 S. Jensen DriveHouston, TX 77003 Visit Our Website |
