Juan Imperial 

Juan Imperial (He/She/They) is a young emerging Filipinx Queer, Non Binary Femme dancer and artist with roots in Vogue and Waacking. They became part of Vancouvers premier KiKi vogue house, House of Gvasalia, founded in 2018 by mother Ralph Escamillan. They have competed and performed in various competitions, community pride and ballroom related events across the Pacific Northwest and has a passion for spreading the joy of vogue and waacking to the QTBIPOC community, especially youth, through teaching classes across the lower mainland. Juan has found deep spiritual liberation, connection and healing through the QTBIPOC art forms of waacking and vogue and sees its powerful potential in connecting marginalized peoples to a safe and uplifting community. They have seen the real, raw healing impact that these dances have on peoples lives and has since then made it his personal duty to their community to share this style with as many people as possible who share similar experiences of shame and oppression. Most recently, Juan has been developing their artistic identity in contemporary and explorative facets of movement to further explore the liminal spaces between spirituality, ancestral reverence and wisdom, collective liberation and artistic practice. He hopes to use this facet of dance as another medium in making sense of and unravelling the painful experiences of generational trauma at the hands of white supremacy, and as a channel for expressing energies, ideas and urges that cannot be captured or expressed in the confines of language.

photo: bridgette janzen