Self Defense Workshop

This workshop centers the needs of BIPOC women and gender non conforming femmes. Please consider whether you identify with this demographic before signing up. No previous martial art experience required. Registration and waiver required for participation. Waiver will be provided on arrival.

Self-defense workshop led by Chrysalis Kali Collective that empowers participants to establish a martial-spiritual connection and invoke their warrior ethos using techniques and concepts from Filipino Martial Arts. The class will begin with exercises on situational awareness, intuition, and body language followed by movements such as eye gouging and head butting. It will address how to have the tactical advantage even if an opponent is stronger or more skilled than you. This program aims to conjure the history of colonial resistance in the Philippines and encourages participants to use self defense as a means of self-preservation and protection.

BIO: Kristen Cabildo is a Jeet Kune Do and Filipino Martial Arts instructor at Unlimited Martial Arts and founder of Chrysalis Kali Collective, a community for Filipinx folks to explore Filipino Martial Arts as a transformative decolonization practice. Kristen believes that our bodies carry both personal and collective histories, and through embodied practice—integrating mind, body, and spirit—we can rewrite these narratives toward healing and growth. She views decolonization as a healing process that involves reconnecting with ancestral knowledge and practices to transform intergenerational and historical trauma into resilience and legacies of thriving. Her mission is to inspire others to cultivate strong bodies that support conscious minds and resilient spirits.
Caroline Garcia is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, moving image, and installation through a hybridized aesthetic of cross-cultural movement, embodied research, and new media. Her practice combines ethno-traditional forms of knowledge such as martial arts, dance, poetry, and ceramics with digital technologies such as green screening, robotics, motion capture, augmented realities, and 3D processes. She is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow, a 2021 New York Artadia Awardee, and a 2021-22 Franklin Furnace Fund recipient. She has presented work at The Shed, Lincoln Center, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Smack Mellon, Creative Time Summit X, The Sydney Opera House, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Manila Biennale, Art Central Hong Kong, amd Tai Kwun Contemporary.

Image caption: Self-defense workshop facilitated by Chrysalis Kali Collective at Recess in 2022.

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