12. Janine Lloce
*How would you describe your art form?: The important part of being a Monologist and an Actor is to always keep in your head that you finally have or soon will have a strong grasp of how to show your hard work, what acting is all about, and that you’re absolutely serious that you love doing this.
What do you hope to achieve through this art form?: As an Actor and Monologist, I just want to cause a reaction, to connect to the people or audience, hope to change their perspective by sending them the message of what the writers want us to interpret, improve, and change how it works. Being engaged in this kind of craft is very therapeutic to me.
11. Trevor Viloria
Twitter & Instagram: @trevorisgood
How would you describe your writing or what do you write most about?: I write about ugly things. No frills. No romanticization. I write about my abusive childhood, my struggle with mental illness, my anger, and my relationship with religion (or lack of it). I’ve been told my writing and performances make people uncomfortable, and I think that’s a good thing. Occasionally, I will write about love and heartbreak, but I don’t really do that anymore.
What inspires or informs your writing?: Besides my own experience, I take inspiration from kindred spirits. I sometimes try to write on behalf of people who went through the same things I did but unlike me, I never had a platform to talk about it. My writing motifs usually come from unusual places like science, meta stuff, and biblical stories among other things.
What do you hope to achieve through this art form?: I want to empower people, encouraging them to express their pain instead of bottling it up inside. Whether what’s bothering them is personal or political, I want people to write about it. I want people to write about the things and issues they care about, no matter how uncomfortable or awkward they may be.
10. Ram Malli
Twitter: @ramintrouble
How would you describe your writing or what do you write most about?: I enjoy using movements as images in my writing since the themes that I tackle in my craft are mostly about sex and sexuality. I also write about abuses, some of them rooted in my own personal experiences and the things happening around me.
What inspires or informs your writing?: Deriving from memory helps me a lot! I’m a homosexual, and since I’m part of a marginalized sector, the narratives of the people who belong in my community provide me with enough rage to write and fight simultaneously. The current state of the country with the decline of human rights also drives me to do what I do.
What do you hope to achieve through this art form?: I want to be able to empathize with a large group of people; art is the way we connect with one another, and I hope that spoken word will effectively give me the pedestal that I need to do it. My job as an artist is to feel emotions twice as hard, so I could articulate them and let people understand sensations that they can’t word themselves.
9. Zuela Herrera
Instagram: @zuela.likha
How would you describe your writing or what do you write most about?: Most of my pieces are about struggles and self-love. Kind of my way to remind, not only myself, but also everyone, if we really want to change the world for the better, we need to start with ourselves, which has always been the hardest.
What inspires or informs your writing?: The news and music.
What do you hope to achieve through this art form?: For people to learn how to really listen and empathize through different stories of struggles.
8. Jonel Revistual
Twitter: @JonelRevistual Instagram: @Revistalata
How would you describe your writing or what do you write most about?: Most of my pieces revolve around the struggles of the masses. Back in college, I became a part of the League of Filipino Students, a progressive group in PUP, and that’s where I picked up a question that I still ask myself until now: To whom do you make art for?
What inspires or informs your writing?: It’s my habit of reading and watching the news.
What do you hope to achieve through this art form?: I hope that my pieces can be an eye-opener for people. Most of the time, we are afraid of what we don’t know, so we keep ourselves uninformed. I wanted to somehow change that by explaining stories of oppression through poetry.
