Matindi

Abstract

University of Washington Abstract Matindi Liezel Moraleja Hackett Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Sarah Dowling, Assistant Professor Creative Writing and Poetics, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences How does one adjust from a freeness of movement to a limitation of pain? There is vulnerability and honesty in the space between anger and acceptance, between sadness and rage, between dance and disease, between captivity and flying. Matindi is an experimental memoir that explores pain and illness through the lens of Filipino mythology and folk dance, set within some of the folk dances from the southern island of Mindanao, whose dances capture the movement of water, an epic battle between cats and hawks, spirits disguised as butterflies, allure, earthquake, to illustrate the challenges of showing your form in the face of adversity.