About The Artist
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This story begins with a teenage Afromexicana feeling stuck in her hometown of Portland, OR. She was an explorer and had a never-ending appetite for adventure. At seventeen she left home. By then she had already performed with Latin Jazz legends Eddie Palmieri and Thera Memory. She had been a principal dancer in the touring company of her performing arts high school which landed her a fellowship at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
But this was not the path she ended up taking. Having decided to go to college a year early she trained in music theater at The University of the Arts. By the time she graduated with honors, she had already begun working in regional theater, specifically in new works. Being a working actor is no small feat and for a time our explorer was content. She began to compose her own music and in doing so, restlessness found her again. The move to New York from Philadelphia was motivated by theater, she would tell people, but that was not entirely truthful. New York was where she made music, collaborated with international producers, and eventually left for Germany. |
In Europe she composed and performed with a Funk/Soul/Hip Hop collective before stepping out on her own with a superhero alter ego of her creation, Dusky Diana. Hero How To was the concept album that led to the interdisciplinary project The Last Days of Kartika, which explored rebellion, liberation, and war through a web series, a graphic musical, and a motion comic installation. We journey with Dusky Diana, an underfunded vigilante, as she fights to rescue her kid sister from the sinister clutches of Phercy Corporation, and witness her transformation from lone avenger to an enemy of the state and a key figure in a citywide justice movement. The project garnered the support of international and U.S. based organizations such as: Tanzhaus NRW, the Puffin Foundation, and A.R.T New York.
Stepping forward as an interdisciplinary artist, Wi-Moto wove theater, film, music and activism into a bilingual story world of her design. Using community building strategies rooted in her cultures she collaborated with like-minded small businesses and independent artists to build her immersive worlds filled with magic and justice. Her return to the U.S. was marked by a return to school, and graduate study at Brooklyn College in Performance and Interactive Media set her on a new path as a writer and producer. In this new era she wrote plays, prose, and screenplays and produced immersive theater, mixed media films, and audio works all in the genre of horror, scifi, and magic realism. Awards and honors include: Ignyte Award Winner for Best Fiction Podcast, Stowe Story Labs selected project, Independent Public Media Foundation grant recipient, Nightmares Film Festival Best Short Screenplay Award Winner, 13 Horror Screenplay Award Winner, Oregon Short Film Festival Best Horror Teleplay Award Winner and more. Published works can be found in Midnight & Indigo’s Speculative Fiction collection, Dread Central, NightTide Magazine, Terror Unleashed: Volume 2, The Last Girls Club magazine, and Latin American Shared Stories from Flame Tree Publishing.
A visionary for intercultural hybrid projects, Wi-Moto is now the founder of Dusky Projects, named after her rebellious alter ego. With her production company she continues to build story worlds and design programming that includes showcases, storytelling events, educational workshops, and performances for adult, young adult, and intergenerational audiences. Wi-Moto believes in art and autonomy, and invites audiences to hold hands in the dark and face the monsters together.
Stepping forward as an interdisciplinary artist, Wi-Moto wove theater, film, music and activism into a bilingual story world of her design. Using community building strategies rooted in her cultures she collaborated with like-minded small businesses and independent artists to build her immersive worlds filled with magic and justice. Her return to the U.S. was marked by a return to school, and graduate study at Brooklyn College in Performance and Interactive Media set her on a new path as a writer and producer. In this new era she wrote plays, prose, and screenplays and produced immersive theater, mixed media films, and audio works all in the genre of horror, scifi, and magic realism. Awards and honors include: Ignyte Award Winner for Best Fiction Podcast, Stowe Story Labs selected project, Independent Public Media Foundation grant recipient, Nightmares Film Festival Best Short Screenplay Award Winner, 13 Horror Screenplay Award Winner, Oregon Short Film Festival Best Horror Teleplay Award Winner and more. Published works can be found in Midnight & Indigo’s Speculative Fiction collection, Dread Central, NightTide Magazine, Terror Unleashed: Volume 2, The Last Girls Club magazine, and Latin American Shared Stories from Flame Tree Publishing.
A visionary for intercultural hybrid projects, Wi-Moto is now the founder of Dusky Projects, named after her rebellious alter ego. With her production company she continues to build story worlds and design programming that includes showcases, storytelling events, educational workshops, and performances for adult, young adult, and intergenerational audiences. Wi-Moto believes in art and autonomy, and invites audiences to hold hands in the dark and face the monsters together.