Non-binary dancer and artist Moréna Espiritual is known for claiming spaces, public and virtual, via dance movements. With their practice rooted in liberating oneself via movement, they are also referencing their African and Taíno roots. One of the only members of their family born in the United States, Moréna was raised in Harlem, on Lenape land (New York) as a result of their parents migrating to the US from the Dominican Republic years ago after being displaced. Moréna gives odes to the African and Taíno diaspora by returning to indigenous ways of relating through dance, such as freestyle, ritual, emotional and communal processing -  practices which manifested in many dances and genres in the Dominican Republic, as the island was historically inhabited by Taínos, the original inhabitants, and Africans - some who were brought over to the island and enslaved during Spanish colonization, and others who migrated there from neighboring islands, as is the case with Moréna’s father who descends from Cocolos (Africans colonized by the English speaking, in this instance tracing back to the British Island of Tortola).

This complex context resulted in the evolution of cultures, races, ethnicities, religions, foods, and dances people on the island and within its diaspora today, who vary from euro descendant to asian descendant, are highly influenced by when it comes to their conception of “Dominican” identity. As an Afro-Indigenous Dominican, Moréna makes a loud statement about their identity by highlighting the attempted erasure of important histories on the island, the survival of their heritage, and their existence via movement. Intertwining their research on art and political movements within Afro-Latinidad, their poetic thoughts, and home videos of them dancing, Moréna posts frequently on their instagram page to share and archive their notions on healing with their community online, making it accessible to people they have formed kinship with locally, in their homeland the Dominican Republic, and across seas from places like Colombia to Brasil.