Michelle “Dilley” O. Angana
Michelle “Dilley” O. Angana (she/her), an artist, upcoming dancer/choreographer (what I at least hope to be), and professional delusionist. A diasporic Filipina living in Toronto, she attempts to live to her own expectations of finding what she wants to do for the rest of her life, what her passions are, how she connects with her culture Filipina roots, and leaving a legacy for herself or how she wants people to remember her as. Growing up with using what she can get, she found her artistic interests through watching the paid dance classes that occurred right across her free karate lessons as well as drawing simple flowers and butterflies with a crappy dollar store pencil and paper because she (luckily) didn’t grow up with IPads. Luckily, she was continuously immersed with the visual art throughout her time as a child as it allowed her to explore her interests of femininity, diaspora, and much more. However, her exploration of dance didn’t begin until she was 10, where her elementary school provided free recreational ballroom lessons for the next four years where she learned the techniques of posture, understanding musicality, and etc. Although stopping during covid, she quickly got back into the craft at 16, where she explored other styles of dance such as hip hop, jazz, waacking, voguing, heels, and much more. She continues to explore the themes of femininity, diaspora, and self-identity as “Dilley,” her alter ego, through dance and installations. She pleads to her audience to ‘tap in’ to her intentions of the pieces she develops as they are responses to current problems, concerns, and situations that go on within her surroundings.
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This project is an archival piece of what I work on during late night sessions at the studios. I tap into what I feel in the current atmosphere such as how I respond to the temperature, the time of day, how I feel, and how busy the current week is through the piece. Archival Records ‘Capricorn or Pisces’ is a movement diary of a working student who balances her passion while continuously finding herself. This diary entry contains the curiosity and tiredness of how she pushes through every week of a repetitive retail job, her undergrad, multiple late night sessions and rehearsals, the attempts of tending to herself, the limited social life she tries to maintain, the expectations to succeed, and the constant questions of ‘What can I do with this so it benefits me for my career in a few years?’I invite the audience to take this installation as a plea to also tap into a new setting when they watch this piece in different perspectives and view the snapshots that are featured in the piece. I want the audience to take a ‘session’ to themselves to respond to the external factors of their lives; asking themselves simple questions asked by others such as, ‘what makes them push through every week,’ ‘have you eaten yet,’ or even ‘what’s up,’ and ‘how are you doing?’ Then, documenting a response in a medium they like, whether it’s a movement diary like this one, or a simple pen and paper. “Tap in, and respond.” ~ Dilley