Kristel Baldoz

It’s been a very busy 2025 and I’m appreciative of all the opportunities and collaborations along the way. I’m not great at posting so here’s some highlights from the year (in no particular order). 1 WIP showing for @movementresearch at Judson. It was wonderful working with @gdfx and @anhqvo featuring @donnauchizonoco . Video credit: @makenna_finch_films 2-4 Photos from my residency at @ucrossfoundation . What a dream! 5-6 I showed Set, Standard at @pageantpageantpageant . So lucky to work with @clinton_edward @graceytong and #cryingjordan 7 Thank you to @donnauchizonoco for inviting me to @nccakron ’s Dancing Lab: Intergenerational Partners. 8 Continued work for @anhqvo with @justincabrillos . Us at @chocolatefactorytheater . 9 Performed with @anhqvo at @on_topo , thanks to @j0nsant0s and @sofia.thieu 10 Protest for Palestinian liberation hosted by @surfers_in_solidarity 11 New ceramic WIP 12 Started drawing and here are my cat niblings. Haven’t drawn since high school or maybe junior high. 13 Cleaning the floor at @asianartsphilly with Anh. 14 Photo by @photo_by_baranova as part of her #facesofdowntownscene 15-16 Volunteering for @zohrankmamdani ’s campaign and making new friends @pookernutterz 17-18 Dancing for @taulewis and @lyra.pramuk as part @performanyc 19 Shrimp earring cuff idea after performing for @rebpatek and @cornervahhhse 20 Showing work at @serendipityartsfestival in Goa.

It’s been difficult to acknowledge my grandmother‘s passing back in late June. I was in NYC and she was in Mabusag, Illocos Norte in the Philippines. I guess you’re never prepared for death even when it’s imminent, and you’re definitely never prepared for the overwhelming grief that follows. Is this what surfing is like? Over the past few years, I’ve traveled to the Philippines to visit my grandma - and looking back at that decision, I’m really glad I got to spend a lot of time with her. My grandma is my second mother. With my grandfather, they moved to the U.S. to help raise my brother and me. She got us ready for and picked us up from school, cooked Filipino meals, mended our clothes, and taught me to dry my feet after a shower right before stepping onto the bath mat. She was like a mama bird (but like a hawk, lol) - making sure we were always taken care of. But she was also funny! I like to think that I get my humor, trickery, and dancing from her. She was joyous, loved to move (see slides 3 & 5), and super silly! She was the one who taught me how to be Filipino, teaching me to dip my pandesal into instant coffee or leveling the dirt outside with the walis. And I thank her for bringing me back to the Philippines, giving me an opportunity to connect with her country - the place that made her an incredible woman. I don’t know what else to say, except that I still terribly miss her. I love you, nana.

I’m excited to show Set, Standard in @pageantpageantpageant next Thursday 2/20 & Fri 2/21! In short, the work consists of me being critiqued in live performance and then fighting someone. The work originated from a frustration with how visual art objects are valued more than performances, where bodies serve as the art medium. The work was constantly evolving where the performers and choreography changed every time the piece was programmed as an effort to resist permanence and control. Through dance, text, and improvisation, this work satirizes the conflation between art criticism and personal critique by questioning what happens when our art is critiqued. Is our personhood being critiqued as well? When bodies become art objects, how does critique capture a moving body in space? For me, over time, the work has served as a practice of losing control and surrendering to the unexpected happenings as the performance unfolds. Set, Standard @ Pageant 70 Graham Ave #3, Brooklyn, NY Thurs & Fri, 2/20 & 2/21 w/ @clinton_edward @graceytong and Crying Jordan Poster design @yoshowtimetv , image credit @linkenvan

PHILLY I’ll be showing my piece Set, Standard this weekend as part of Philly Fringe Festival and the @cannonballfest . I’m LITERALLY going to be critiqued and fight someone. Would love for you to see it! Sept 28 @ 6:30pm Sept 29 @ 5:00pm Tickets are PWYW I’ll be joined by my wonderful collaborators @brenthomas112 and @bryanfernandez.studio Set, Standard is a commentary on art criticism. Using dance, text, and improvisation, this work satirizes the conflation between art criticism and personal critique by questioning what happens when our art is critiqued. Is our personhood being critiqued as well? When bodies become art objects, how does critique capture a moving body in space? Set, Standard originated as a choreographed hyperbolic fight between a visual artist and a dancemaker with live commentary from art industry professionals. The work was constantly evolving where the performers and choreography changed every time the piece was programmed as an effort to resist permanence and control. Set, Standard incorporates this unsettling, humorous-while-indicting unwieldiness, relegating the audience to the discomforting, but privileged, role of spectator. It exists in the spaces in-between the hierarchical positioning of different creative industries, as well as the dissonance of enjoying one’s guilty pleasure, while thinking, “I really shouldn’t be here right now.” Past performers include visual artists @d_m_ojeda performance artists George Emilio Sanchez and @tartar.biz and Hyperallergic editor @hakimbishara .

This is late but I wanted to memorialize this trip to Vietnam. With @thereisnophuong @romimadam @ethanphilbrick @nileharris , we performed in Của Chung Của Tục by @anhqvo as part of @no.cai.bum 2024. It was epic trying to get this performance up! Southeast Asia is a different ballpark but thanks to all the organizers for making this happen. Afterwards, I went to Manila to see my 94-year old grandma and got trapped by Super Typhoon Yagi. First time in Asia during the rainy season and first experience with a typhoon. Looking forward to the next trip. Next up is Philly next weekend for the Cannonball Festival - hope to see you there!

It’s been an honor to perform in Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024) at @themuseumofmodernart . We have three more days to present this historic work. Catch us at 12pm in the garden and 3pm in the atrium. Thank you to @nefeli_skarmea @a_janevski @katejscherer @livxorouse @clluur Jessie Gold and Kayva Yang. Photos and footage courtesy of @livxorouse Movement Director: Nefeli Skarmea Performers: Martita Abril (Pichu), Kristel Baldoz, Biba Bell, Joyce Edwards, Miguel Angel Guzmán, Hristoula Harakas, Kehari Hutchinson, djassi daCosta johnson, NIC Kay, Jennifer Kjos, Tara Lorenzen, Mickey Mahar, Lydia Okrent, Stacy Lynn Smith, Jin Ju Song-Begin, Anna Adams Stark, Coco Villa, AJ Wilmore. In the late 1960s, Joan Jonas’s early performances utilized mirrors as props for transforming the perception of space and as devices for exploring representation, doubling, and the hierarchies of gender. Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024) reprises Jonas’s groundbreaking early Mirror Piece works, updated and reconstructed from the notes and photographs of Mirror Piece I (1969) and Mirror Piece II (1970). In these works, a cast of performers face an audience carrying mirrors and panes of plexiglass in synchronized, choreographed motions. The audience, performers, and surroundings are reflected and fragmented in the moving mirrors as the piece unfolds, blurring the boundary between spectator and participant. As Jonas recalls, “The mirror was a metaphor for me. A device to alter the image and to include the audience as reflection, making them uneasy as they view themselves in public.”

Last year I was fortunate to be part of the Art Cake Dance Series where I made Set, Standard. In this constantly evolving piece, I fight a visual artist and have live commentary from someone who is seeing the piece for the first time. The performers change whenever it’s performed and, by default, the work changes. I like not having control of how the work ends up. With @ataboystudios , Set, Standard was reimagined as a short film, which is what you see here. Thank you @corydon4 and the @ataboystudios team for being incredible people to work with and creating this film with me. And a special thanks to @mar.bell and @baddgalmomo for making this happen. You can watch the full version on my website. Link in my bio. Previous performers for Set, Standard : @bryanfernandez.studio , George Emilio Sanchez, @hakimbishara Catch the second version of this work this upcoming Saturday 10/07 at the Collapsable Hole as a part of the @preludenyc festival. I will be fighting @d_m_ojeda .

Word of mouth is doing its thing. Tickets for the closing night are selling fast!!! Video by Sam Dellert.

non-binary pussy opens on Saturday, 9:30pm at Icebox Project Space, presented by @cannonballfest as part of @fringearts . Performance by me and @reallygoodatmath , music by @isilberis , poster design by @durationality

We’re at it again! On tour with @anhqvo and their piece “non-binary pussy.” I’m excited to be back and performing in Philly! Catch us on Sept 2-3 and 8 at @iceboxprojectspace as part of @fringearts and @cannonballfest . It’s been a fun and delightful journey developing Anh’s vision of this piece. I’m excited to perform with Anh and hopefully we’ll get the choreo down!

As part of my Fresh Track’s residency at @nylivearts I presented a new work, “Yellow Fever.” This work draws from Anne Anlin Cheng's concept of ornamentalism, engaging in the relationship and slippage between objecthood and personhood/orientalism and objectification that is tied to the female Asian identity. Cheng’s concept addresses how the Asiatic woman, the “yellow” woman, is seen as an aesthetic ornament - she is viewed as an object rather than a person. Through dance, ceramics, and indictment, this new piece investigates the choreography and movement between body and objects. Thank you to my incredible collaborators Sound Design: @c.darbassie Text Advisor: @brenthomas112 Choreographic Articulator: @irenehultmanmonti and the incredible team at @nylivearts Photography by Maria Baranova, Courtesy New York Live Arts @photo_by_baranova

I’m presenting “Yellow Fever,” a new work in a shared bill with 4 incredible choreographers as part of my residency at @nylivearts Fresh Tracks Program. Performances are on June 16 & 17 @ 7:30pm. Tickets are now available. Hope you can make it! Sharing the show with: @love.entirely @malcolmxbetts @jade_charon @pineappleju_icefrog