ABOUT
ARTIST STATEMENT
My nickname is Khokhoi, which comes from Cebuano 'agocoy' to mean 'little crab that bites.'
I am a mover, media maker, cultural worker, bodyworker, plant worker & care worker of Visayan Philippine island origins.
I explore sensual intimacies with shifting techno-ecologies through embodied & collaborative research. I approach this process from experimental auto-ethnography into participatory research practice by moving between borders, cultures, bodies & ecologies, within & outside codes of the social mediated.
My arts practice channels movement-based performance (informed by butoh dance, improv, hatha yoga & martial arts), embodied practices for indigenous healing arts (hilot, power plant herbalism, touchskin massage, movement therapy), personal/communal rituals (private/public altars, community art gatherings) & ephemeral digital media (blogs, texts, .gifs).
I seek to illuminate the diverse 'techno-ecologies' in which plural bodies transform in relational space-time & eco-communal network, translated in time-based digital media.
ABOUT
KhoKhoi (aka KK/mary alinney villacastin) is a movement-based artist, auto-ethnographic writer, media researcher & healer of Visayan-Philippine island diaspora.
KK received a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College of Columbia University & an MA in Media Studies at The New School of Public Engagement. In 2017, KK participated in a Public Performance Fellowship with Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and in 2018-2019, received an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in Dance to study community street festivals & performance media cultures in the Visayan islands, Philippines, reconnecting with communal roots there, including a residency with Tropical Futures Institute. KK's presented, among others, at danspace project, Yale Divinity School, Southeast Asian Media Studies Conference & published widely, under different names, in literary journals (DREGINALD, Brickplight, Rambutan Literary, minor literature[s], Coldnoon & elsewhere).
For the past decade, alongside academic studies & artistic co-creations, while on the road traveling, KK continues dedicated learning in the healing arts of plant medicine (from Philippines, Mexico, India), hilot/bodywork (Philippine-based certifications in Thai Yoga, Philippine Hilot), yoga/Ayurveda (200-hours Hatha Yoga + 100-hours Ayurveda Foundations at AyurYoga Eco-Ashram, Karnataka, India), dance/martial arts (Movement Research, butoh, Kalari at Kalarigram, Tamil Nadu, India) & currently, dance movement therapy (92Y, NYC). In 2017, KK founded dreampr00fx, a healing arts project for sharing herbal, ritual & massage offerings in community. In 2021, the seeds of a quarantine garden tended in Bantayan island birthed Kalami Spirit Arts, a platform exploring sensual pleasures of plant, movement, cultural & healing arts.
KK works to heal collaboratively & in community with Panlantawon in Bantayan Island, Visayas, Philippines / Red Canary Song in Lenapehoking territories of New York City / & Cosmiknots in the cosmic void. Grateful to the Seminole subtropical swamplands of South Florida where her family migrated & looking back/forward for future returns to Visayan seas, KK is currently a returning migrant-settler on Mannahatta Island (New York City).
RECENT/UPCOMING
Panlantawon | part of Visayan Biennale VIVAEXCON16 | Bantayan Island, Philippines
co-organizer & participating artist
Launch of Kalami Spirit Arts | Lenape land, New York, NY
founder of healing arts project