jay carlon

A year ago, I premiered WAKE [ 10.11.24 | @cap_ucla ] It was a moment of realization that dance and performance could help me make sense of the painful world unraveling around me, and still allow me to survive, to thrive, joyfully and unapologetically, held by community. I grew tired of fighting and asked: what happens if we stop? I’ve been wrestling with grief for generations—2025 has been no exception. I share this excerpt from Round VIII: Baptism, where I bathe myself in the grief I once fought/loved, hoping that it would transmute into something less heavy. A year after the premiere, as we rebuild and forge a future for queer imaginaries, I hope to continue to share this work: to channel the ongoing onslaught of grief into resilience. I made this work for those born in the wake of the US empire. Together we will rise. White Rice. Brown Body. To my greatest teacher, coach, and punk future ancestor—I love you láwû! 🥭 4eva Couldn’t have done this without the support of my creative producer @briansea.xyz and the unbound sonic talent of @white_boy_scream . Video shot and edited by @daltoncamera 💥

i am specially-produced-american-meat (spam) by jay carlon x men i have ever met by sungjae lee best compliment from an audience member was that they said it reminded them of wong kar-wai’s 1997 film happy together a work in progress showcase for @first_draft_la at @humanresourcesla — 10 june 2024. further development of this work 2024, premiere 2025. photos by multiple audience members that texted or airdropped them so i don’t remember the credit sources, but tysm for the love. — This collaboration between AAPI artists @jaycarlon and @thony0806 traverses inquiry surrounding queer Asian identity and performance. Inspired by a dream that Carlon had of SPAM (luncheon meat) tied in shibari (japanese bondage), “I am Specially Produced American Meat” interrogates themes of U.S. and Japanese forces during World War II on both Philippine and Korean occupied land, and how colonial interests impact [dis]connection to land, community, and the diaspora. “Men I Have Ever” is a collection of 100+ written encounters revisiting Lee’s queer journey navigating interpersonal relationships. Through an intimate storytelling of Lee’s first time meeting Carlon with rope, ladder, and a lightbulb, the story illuminates the relationship between shame, racial identity, and a deep desire for connection.

Happy Filipino American History Month 🇵🇭 Los Angeles-based artist and choreographer @jaycarlon explores the tensions between their Filipino and American identities through themes of decolonization, revolution, and liberation via queer nightlife and martial arts in the world premiere of WAKE. One night only — 10/11/24. The dance floor will heal you! 🪩 Original music by Micaela Tobin @white_boy_scream

ARTIST ANNOUNCEMENT 📣 OUT THERE A WEST COAST EXPERIMENTAL DANCE FESTIVAL WEEK I OCT 2-4 7:30 PM Akoiya Harris (SEA) Jay Carlon (LA) WEEK II OCT 9-11 7:30 PM Vlada Kremenović (SEA) Sara Shelton Mann + Jesse Zaritt (SF) 12th Ave arts MainStage Find out more and get your tickets for the fall in our website. (We recommend getting a festival pass and seeing all the Kunst you can!) Special events included in your ticket and announced soon! <3 Vid montage @joseph____hernandez

Jay Carlon is a queer dance artist, choreographer and community organizer whose work is grounded in a collective journey toward decolonization and sustainability. Carlon grew up the youngest of 12 in a Filipino Catholic migrant family, on the Central Coast of California. His work facilitates collective healing and the exploration of post-colonial identity, ancestry, and the complex experience of queer and Filipinx communities in relationship to site and space.⁠ Carlon connects a global network of Filipinx creatives, including Mga Tsismosa in connection with NCCAkron and Daring Dances and international collective Istorya-Istorya. He organizes community for healing around art, food, and kapwa; including events like Talaga at 2220 Arts + Archives and Bahay at Genever, both in Historic Filipinotown. Carlon’s continued work with Los Angeles-based collaborators Carlo Maghirang and Micaela Tobin spans genre and format, including experimental opera (Apolaki), concert dance, and gallery installation.⁠ Carlon creates both within and without the institution. Their work along the West Coast engages Filipino enclaves around shared experience; through the Filipino American National Historical Society on the Central Coast, and in Los Angeles at REDCAT NOW Festival, Electric Lodge, homeLA, The Broad Museum, the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles Dance Project, and Annenberg Community Beach House in addition to performances with Makini, The Industry Opera, and Oguri. In New York, they have engaged with audiences as a choreographer at 92ndY and The CURRENT SESSIONS, and as a performer with the Metropolitan Opera and Bill T. Jones. In dialogue with the Filipinx-American experience, Carlon also researches and develops work in his ancestral family’s home in Bohol, Philippines; as well as internationally in Monterrey, Mexico at Espacio Expectante; and in Bangkok, Thailand at Creative Migration. ⁠ (Continued in the Comments)

TALAGA is Jay Carlon and Micaela Tobin’s ongoing, iterative practice: an intimate gathering of performance, conversation, and food. Each iteration of TALAGA is shaped by place and community, creating space to share cultural memory, lived experience, and artistic research. For Portland, Maine, TALAGA will be in dialogue with the tapestry of this region and its legacies of labor, craft, and agriculture. Carlon and Tobin will engage the historic space of Mechanics’ Hall, weaving together threads of textile, migration, and embodied memory. Carlon is the most recent recipient of the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation’s Choreographer Award. 🗓️ May 7 • 7 PM 📍 @maine.mechanics Portland 🎟 FOR TICKETS & MEMBERSHIP - @porttixmaine - The trusted box office for purchasing Portland Ovations tickets. Photos by Brad Wakoff from Queering Perspectives Festival 2024 at Williams College.

omg i’m 40 i’m 60% baby, 15% mommy, and 25% daddy i be playing this game — baby, mommy, daddy — with all my friends as a fun rice breaker… a psychoanalysis exercise that gleans insight into how they perceive themselves within familial, archetypal, and structural dynamics. i lovingly have a high percentage of baby… babies are dreamers, artists… we wanna be held and loved. we don’t want to write emails or grants; we want to play and experiment and make sense of the world. also, i am the youngest of 12 so this 40-year-old will always be baby. i never want to lose this childlike wonderment. but alas, baby gotta grow up and pay taxes or whatever. several years back, while in therapy, i worked through hugging and holding my childhood self. that gesture became laborious for me… i could feel baby jay wanting to move on, feeling held back… and through some deep work revisiting a core memory of abandonment — a moment when little me didn’t want to be hugged or embraced any longer — the gesture shifted to holding his hand and walking next to him. simply just being with him. i think that’s the 15% mommy there… it oscillates to sometimes 20-25%. this mama’s boy used to drive a minivan in high school and friends called me Ma (don’t make me drink alone!) and my 25% daddy is there because i really miss him. i feel him everywhere. he’s been gone for 18 years, but each year his presence in my life grows. i wish i could be 300% — 100% baby, 100% mommy, and 100% daddy

a little pre bday / earth day offering 🍋

Join us for an evening of moving dance! Dancer/choreographer/community organizer @jaycarlon and composer/sound artist/vocalist @white_boy_scream bring people together in their iterative performance practice known as "TALAGA". This intimate and relaxed gathering combines performance, conversation, and food in the spirit of sharing and learning about unique cultural perspectives and lived experiences. The most recent recipient of the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation’s Choreographer Award, Carlon’s work facilitates shared healing and the exploration of post-colonial identity, ancestry, and the complex queer and Filipinx experience in relationship to site and space. 🗓️ May 7 • 7 PM 📍 @maine.mechanics Portland 🎟 FOR TICKETS & MEMBERSHIP - @porttixmaine - The trusted box office for purchasing Portland Ovations tickets.

happy LA art week… 💚🩷 here is a shirt i designed with fabric from the tubigon weavers in my home province bohol, philippines. these colors are so uniquely filipino: lime green, carnation pink, and maroon 🤯 these weavers are renowned for producing traditional, hand-loomed textiles and crafts, primarily using organic raffia fibers from the buri palm 🌴 catch me this week parading around los angeles with my social battery capped in this top 😎

✨ARTIST SPOTLIGHT✨ Jay Carlon is a queer dance artist, choreographer and community organizer whose work is grounded in a collective journey toward decolonization and sustainability. His work facilitates shared healing and the exploration of post-colonial identity, ancestry, and the complex queer and Filipinx experience in relationship to site and space. Filipino-American composer and sound artist Micaela Tobin wields her soprano voice against the confines of convention, specializing in experimental and contemporary realms of opera and noise. Integrating voice with electronics, ritualized gesture and amplified object-symbolism, she weaves dynamic music that is at once alluring and demanding. Sydney Cohen, aka Hey Aswang, styles in the fray—where experimental fashion and music flirt with care and communication. Reclaiming the aswang, the shape-shifting Filipino folk creature, she turns the “monstrous” into sources of power and play by weaving storytelling with people who like to push boundaries and practice radical transformation. Part requiem, part reckoning, WAKE is a ritual for transformation. Filmed during the 2024 Los Angeles premiere, Filipino American artist Jay Carlon steps into the ring of memory and ancestry, confronting grief both personal and inherited. What begins as a solo act becomes a public rite: a prayer, a provocation, a body in resistance. Created in collaboration with experimental sound artist Micaela Tobin and featuring the late láwû makuriye’nte, whose performance brought radical depth and presence to this work; a singular moment now preserved on film and shared with the OUTsider community with whom they were so deeply embedded. Come hang before the screening for a set from DJ Hey Aswang and artist talk with the creative team: Jay Carlon, Micaela Tobin, Sydney Cohen, Baseck, and Brian Sea (producer) in conversation with OUTsider Artistic Director, Laura Gutiérrez, on resilience and re-building. @jaycarlon @white_boy_scream @heyaswang @baseck Get your badge today, link in bio #jaycarlon #micaelatobin #heyaswang #baseck #outsider2026 graphics by @rolandosepulvedaii

there’s a philippine proverb that goes something like, if you’re afraid of snakes, stay out of the jungle. i lived this lunar year hiding; in fear, afraid to confront the wood snake. in fact ignoring its presence altogether. i spent the beginning of 2026, the last lunar moon of the snake, on my ancestral land (literally in the jungle) machete-ing through the forrest to see the land. and my philippine animism held fear as i whispered tabi-tabi po* to search for my dad’s land. cutting through the dense jungle and marsh land, my legs halfway in mud and chopping through bamboo, i felt something shedding… perhaps it was the skin of the wood snake. i learned a lot on this trip to the philippines. i learned about my luck in this lifetime. i can hear my ancestors rooting for me, into the hard limestone that makes up my family’s island. the land that was once underwater millions of years ago, now emerged into this tiny 3 sq mile where my family calls home for hundreds of years. i hear them crying for me like a roaring volcano, bones like tectonic shifts make me feel anew. here’s a photo dump of it all… details in comments lahat ng gubat ay may ahas — every forest/jungle has snakes. HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR! this fire tiger is ready for the year of the fire horse *tabi-tabi po is what pilipinos say when they walk in nature and ask for permission to be there from the spiritual realm… my mom says, “be careful, you might step onto a fairy”