Dear Community,

We're thrilled to share a surge of excitement with you, overflowing like a starbursting fountain! Time's chariot has raced, and it's time for some MAJOR UPDATES! 🌟⏳

In the past year, the House of Kilig formed with 13 members! We had a sold-out Harana show at BASE in May, completed our Siren video shoot on Whidbey Island in June, dazzled at ENBY Party with our behind-the-scenes workshop in August. We also got into Jack Straw studios to record our “Death Looks Like Me” poem and HOK Moon River tracks with Amori, Freddie, and Izumi. Just this month, we received the Precipice Grant through PICA. Our roots have spread along the west coast, many of us now in Portland, OR (on the unceded homelands of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, and Molalla people). Through this journey, a pressing need emerged—a dream for a sanctuary, a space to rest, create, dream, and imagine a thriving world for us and our communities. A haven where embodiment is embraced, where we address limitations and foster our life force energy. 🌱✨

(ID: Moonyeka & kai at a podium as apart of Precipice Fund PICA celebrations. Gaby and Heidi stand to the right hands behind their back, smiling, Olivia and Sam stand to the left looking towards the podium)

It is with big excitement that we announce that

this dream has come to fruition!

The story goes like this:

In an act of curiosity one fall afternoon kai, with his Virgo rising magic began researching the process of what it would mean to obtain space. 🍂

A few hours later, kai, engrossed in a Craigslist wormhole, searching for something that could meet this yearning, and BAM! serendipity bared its moonlit face. A space revealed itself, and dared us to choose it back, to lean into our roles as space holders and tenders. We were ready to forge deeper connections—strengthening our kapwa with ourselves and with our present, neighboring, and forthcoming communities. 🌌

We consulted some of our HOK fam and after many weepy conversations full of butterfly balisong knife clarity, we said yes to the space!

(kai signing some very official papers!)

…And so, Paruparo fluttered out of its cocoon and came into existence…. 🐛🦋

(ID: Moonyeka on the left, holding hands with kai, they wear a brown skirt with a velvety brown button up, off the shoulder, kai wears blue jeans, white boots and a white fuzzy cardigan, the background is a gold wall with a circular mural from a past artist, presumedly embodying the four elements. Picture taken by @sam.doodles)

Paruparo, pronounced peru-peru, is a Tagalog-Austronesian word for “butterfly”. We like to subscribe to the belief that this word is an onomatopoeia, emulating the sound of the wings fluttering. In this case, we see this word more as a trans type of noun as it is derived from the action of fluttering, or being a butterfly which is an embodiment, a journey more than it is a destination. We called in the spirit of Paruparo to the space we want to build, hoping it would extend its wisdom of gentle action and the way it can initiate the flurries of individuals to flutter collectively to places we’ve been, places we’ve dreamed, and places we’re going. In the spirit of kapwa, this word is the mascot for the space we want to build, as it is in solidarity with the many Black, Brown, and Indigenous cultures that also have a reduplicating, p-shaped-onomatopoeic word to describe butterflies. We chose this symbol to reclaim the natural way that cross pollination of ideas, culture, migration and metamorphosis occurs across diaspora.

Paruparo is a QTPOC-centered artist and healing venue that offers classes, workshops, and practice space. We center the liberation of trans and queer people of color by providing safe(r) containers to deepen our spiritual and creative practices.

The physical space is 1000 sq ft in what was held as a community meditation space for the last two decades. We will be prioritizing COVID-conscious practices and will provide masks (and COVID tests when available) for community members. We will also have a mutual aid pantry where we will source shelf-stable food items and snacks, personal hygiene products, PPE, and supplies for sex workers. There are two single stall gender neutral bathrooms as well! At this time, Paruparo lacks accessibility for folx with varying mobility access needs (i.e. there is a flight of stairs that must be used to access the space).

We have been hard at work, renovating Paruparo (shoutout to YouTube for teaching us all sorts of new handy things!). Here is a time lapse video so you can see how far we have come:

With all this exciting news, we wanted to cordially invite you to:

TROPIKAL TANTRUM:

AN OPENING CELEBRATION & FUNDRAISER

We’re all set for the big reveal in 2024! Get ready to experience pure excitement at our opening celebration and fundraiser: Tropikal Tantrum! Your ticket purchase contributes to our start up goal of $25,000.

Join us on Friday, January 12th. Doors open at 7:30 PM, show starts at 8PM kicking off an evening where your heart will tantrum through swoons, croons, and volcanic eruptions with a celestial lineup of music by 🎵 Freddie Lee Toyoda, Izumi, Amori, and closing the night: a DJ set by Reylinn.

Additionally, be mesmerized as the radiant 🌸 Aries Silk & Hibiscus Lust grace the stage as hosts and performers, bringing forth captivating dance moves and an enchanting aura. Make sure to arrive on time to immerse yourself in the ephemeral portal of a live AV set by in motion and CCTV installation by Arabella Bautista. And of course, no Tropikal Tantrum is complete without a few surprises up our sleeves! 😉✨🦋🌋

So, community, those are the updates! We are hard at work getting a website ready for launch so stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, please give us a follow on Instagram @paruparo.pdx!

We are so excited to see you, and we love and appreciate all the big oceans of support and love that we have already received.

Big love & kilig,

kai & nawa

🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋🌋

Meet the co-founders of Paruparo

kai alviar horton (they/he) is a Trans, queer, gender expansive, neurospicy, Filipinx/Latinx activist, poet, healer, and brujx born as a settler on the unceded homelands of the Chumash and Tongva people. They have the honor of being the co-founder/director of Paruparo and the executive director of The House of Kilig. Growing up in an immigrant, working class household, kai held this dream of opening a space like Paruparo for over a decade but was never sure how or when it would ever be possible. Through the abundance of love and community as a resource, this dream is finally becoming a reality. As a self-proclaimed dharma, somatics, and astrology nerd, he has yearned for a world where other QTBIPOC folx could come together in spiritual and creative practice that centers our joy and creates space for our collective grief outside of the gaze of white cisheteropatriarchy. They have a dream of dismantling the barriers that artists and healers often face to simply exist and offer their practices both to themselves and to the collective. Their biggest hope and dream for Paruparo is that it can act as a place for embodied liberation, pleasure, joy, and solidarity through building a collective practice of love. You will likely find kai reading “All About Love'' by bell hooks for the thousandth time, in a monotropic state about astrology, sharing interesting animal factoids, writing poetry, making connections between transexuality and nature, or cooking an epic feast for his beloved spouse and community in his free time.

Instagram: @kaidal.waves

(image above and below by @sam.doodles)

nawa alviar horton, known as "Moonyeka" (they/them) is a mixed heritage nonbinary Ilocano-Filipinx shapeshifter who takes form as an interdisciplinary performing artist, writer, choreographer, curator, and brujx. They have the honor of being the Artistic Director of The House of Kilig. Eager to channel their development prowess, they join Paruparo as co-founder/director. With a specialty in offering sensually sacred dance and movement-based storytelling experiences, Moonyeka's performance, community organizing and divination work centers kapwa and kilig as a compass to imagine worlds where their communities can thrive.

They’re currently developing an upcoming work, Harana For The Aswang. Harana for The Aswang is an interdisciplinary performance work centered on the research of harana, a Filipinx serenade song form rooted in courtship and grief rituals.

nawa also plays in the fields of gamewriting, chimeric and biomythographic writing practices and is working towards publishing their first book. They were recently published in smoke and mold with their multiverse of work centering Waling-Waling Orchids. Am I Hot Enuf 2 Kill? is series of hybrid poetic texts that will be released in The Holy Hour, by Working Girls Press, Spring 2024.

Instagram @m00nyeka & @houseofkilig

Tropikal Tantrum: opening celebration & fundraiser 🌋

By Paruparo Collective

Tropikal Tantrum: opening celebration & fundraiser 🌋