Related Features
IMPRESSIONS: Chloe London's "Unstable Sky" at Triskelion Arts
![IMPRESSIONS: [RE]DEFINING [SPACE] at Triskelion Arts](/images/features_small/3_Trisk_day_3_selects_by_caroline_alarcon_loor_064.png)
IMPRESSIONS: [RE]DEFINING [SPACE] at Triskelion Arts
IMPRESSIONS: Triskelion Arts' Split Bill #47 presents Ariana Speight and Cristina Moya-Palacios
By Kristen Hedberg/@kristen.hedberg on Instagram
View Profile |
More From This Author
Published on December 30, 2025
Photos: (l to r) Kyla Thomas and Rachel Keane
“All American Dream Girl!”
Choreography: Cristina Moya-Palacios
Performance: Cristina Moya-Palacios, Kashia Kancey
Costume: Valentina Bache
Collaborator: Kashia Kancey
Sound: Cristina Moya-Palacios
Prop Customization: Cristina Moya-Palacios
Lighting Design: Anna Wotring
“PSA: Pubic Service Announcement”
Creation, Performance, and Costuming: Ariana Speight
Dramaturgy: Meghan Baptiste, dorchel haqq
Projection: “Myrtle Beach Rocks – Granny, Grandma Shirly, Uncle Ric, and I”
Sound:
Treehome95 (Instrumental) – Tyler, The Creator
Universal Studios
A Long Slow Little Wave / Citizen, An Activity – Loving
Parker Pond
After the Storm – Kali Uchis (feat. Tyler, The Creator & Bootsy Collins) [Pete Rock Remix]
Skylark – Gretchen Parlato > Arethan Franklin > Ella Fitzgerald
Sound Editing: Quaba Ernest
Lighting Design: Anna Wotring
December 5, 2025
At the intimate Triskelion Arts, Split Bill #47 presented two solos, works by Cristina Moya-Palacios and Ariana Speight, which spoke of identity, reflection, and memory.
Moya-Palacios' "All American Dream Girl!" opens dreamily, before bursting into a party. A piñata glides across the stage, carried in discreetly by Kashia Kancey. Suddenly, there is a blackout. At the lights' return, we find Moya-Palacios sitting contemplatively, adorning the piñata as a mask. Slowly, she rotates on her hip, then eventually rises to her feet, orbiting the stage. As she elevates onto her tiptoes and whirls faster and faster, cheers erupt.
This initial giddiness turns leaden when Moya-Palacios collapses. Her movements become weighted. She attempts to step forward, but finds she cannot. Her struggle seems to address the exhausting cycles many immigrants navigate in the United States: the effort to push against systemic inequities that continually push back. As her piñata mask unravels, her gestures grow sweeping and expansive.
Moya-Palacios addresses us with patriotic slogans and questions: "Wow, that was a lot! God Bless America, right? Land of the free! Am I right?"
"Give me a beat!" she demands of a viewer in the second row, who claps a steady rhythm for a few minutes before letting the sound fade. Moya-Palacios has not moved. "Keep clapping! There are no breaks, no rewards...so keep clapping!"
The lights blare magenta, and the sound system blasts Hilary Duff's "What Dreams Are Made Of." Moya-Palacios dances with exaggerated glee before warping into frustration, shouting Duff's lyrics, "I'VE GOT…SOMEWHERE I BELONG!" Later, "This Land Is Your Land" plays as she prepares a hot dog on stage, then eats it. This brilliant moment, capturing American irony, surprises us.
While Moya-Palacios' work outwardly confronts, Ariana Speight's "PSA: Pubic Service Announcement" turns within. The work begins with home-video projections of Speight's childhood at Myrtle Beach, sharing moments with family, and enjoying time outside. These images set a nostalgic tone that lingers throughout the work.
The live performance opens with Speight seated at a drum set. She plays the drums with a grounded, meditative steadiness that envelopes us, then traces her torso with her drumsticks and sinks to the floor. For the remainder of "PSA…", the drum set becomes an observer. (I would have loved to see her return to the drums again!)
Speight's deliberate, measured movements captivate. She pushes the drum set's bench across the stage space, tracing the floor in linear patterns. Separate from the bench, she travels down a sharp diagonal, moving through wide stances with a thoughtful steadiness. As she arrives at the end of her path, she leans into a column, falling into it repeatedly and strumming it with her fingertips. It feels as though she is listening to her memories.
Throughout the work, she sheds layers: a shawl, bright green pants, down to a hot pink slip dress. This shedding may be a nod to childhood nostalgia evolving into the confidence of adulthood.
The piece concludes with Speight slowly walking up the stairs, through Triskelion's house, to join us. Singing a calm, melodic solo from the top of the house, she brings us further into her world. At the song's end, the space reverberates, and we feel connected to Speight's journey from past to present.
Both Moya-Palacios and Speight deliver each gesture and intention with vivid expressiveness. Where Moya-Palacios confronts us with her questions and challenges, Speight welcomes us into her intimate memories and grounding passion.
![IMPRESSIONS: Will Rawls' [siccer] at the Keith Haring Theatre, Performance Space New York](/images/features_large/20251119_WillRawls_siccer_PerformanceSpaceNY_WhitneyBrowne--55.jpg)
