Today we’d like to introduce you to Pixie (Mayari Sirena) Tomacruz.
Hi Pixie (Mayari Sirena), so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I, Pixie, Mayari Sirena – have always been an artist.
From an early age, I had an affinity for performing, singing Disney princess songs at family gatherings from the age of three. It was the seed of a deep love that, at the time, I never realized, in my wildest dreams, what it would and could become.
My parents quickly put me in ballet, where I’d hone my craft of dancing for 14 years. These years taught me discipline, work ethic, and what it meant to truly commit to a practice. I fell in love with dance! The time, energy, and deep capacity was water for the seed, and roots slowly formed underground.
During this time – my childhood and adolescence – not only was I cultivating my skills in dance; I also learned to be a quiet, rule-abiding, devoutly Catholic child. I repressed a lot to stay polite, to not make the room stir. I learned to be small, to shrink myself into the corner of every space I was in. Shame became a habit, a spiral, an unwanted friend.
I began to be sharp with myself, just as Catholicism and ballet were to me. Both instilled a sense of obedience, of pushing myself into a rigid box. But it never fit; as I grew, I began to feel claustrophobic in this box, even in my own skin.
My early adulthood was a pivotal era. At first, I adhered to my own dogmatic way of being, of shame – it was all I knew; I suppressed my feelings, repressed my expression, and it built up in my body like magma under the earth. For a year, eruptions of different magnitudes eroded my inner landscape, lava scorching the earth. So much of what I knew, thought, believed, was burned down. But what was left was fertile soil.
Towards the end of college was a period of removing, of rebuilding, of repair. I started picking up debris that impeded my growth, inspecting it and trying to understand it. I rebuilt my value system. I repaired my innate curiosity that was shrouded with time.
I let this curiosity lead me to a heels class, one fateful night in early 2023. At this point, dance had faded to the wayside as I navigated all my personal challenges; but I put that aside to try something new. Dancing in heels felt like a puzzle piece clicking into place! Being in a heel was so powerful, as if I were embodying my most sensual, beautiful, liberated self. I trained intensely in heels for a year; the roots I had forgotten about from my ballet days were being tended to again, and now, I could see the germination emerge from the fertile soil. The lovely heels community took me in with open arms, and doors began to burst open. Heels led me to cabaret, which led me to burlesque.
Burlesque felt like a radical act; it was resistance to years of rigidity and shame. As I shed layers of clothing in each performance, I peeled back the layers that kept me bound. It was the genesis of a darker side of me – Mayari Sirena. As Mayari, I navigated the depths of my shadow through art and performance.
Burlesque has transformed me in ways I never imagined; the seed planted from my childhood now is a blossoming hibiscus flower, its beauty radiating in the sun.
Now, I am at another fork in the road. Dance and performance has been the core of my artistry for over 2 decades! I am now ready to embark on a new path and cultivate a new practice of creativity. For a year now, I have been writing poetry, and have been learning ceramics! I even am returning to old loves – singing.
Art is an ever growing practice for me, a practice of love and liberation. I welcome the changes with curiosity and respect, and excitement for what’s to come.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
A major struggle of mine was with mental health.
I am a Filipino immigrant. My roots, habituated in the damp, rich soil of the Philippine land, were uprooted and placed in the dry, barren terrain of West Texas. For my entire adolescence I felt severed from my home, and that I never belonged. I was ashamed of my skin, of my Filipino accent, of every single inch of my body and my being. Yet, I suppressed how I felt, deep down inside of me.
I struggled with my mental health all through college. The repression of my teenage years exploded in bursts, and I struggled to cope for many years. These bursts of chaos came in forms of depressive episodes, panic attacks, and manic episodes. I had no tools, no idea of how to emotionally regulate. I set fires but could not put them out.
After an extreme emotional outburst that led me to being admitted inpatient for mental health struggles, I decided to finally seek out therapy. For the first year, I had trouble opening up; I never dropped the mask of a smile. But my first therapist persisted – I persisted, too – and for 6 years, I worked with her to look behind that mask, dig deep within myself, and examine my roots.
Through 8 years (and counting) of trauma work, EMDR, internal family systems (IFS), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and radically-open DBT, I unfurled the tangled webs of trauma that knotted into my body. I painstakingly unraveled stories, beliefs, and memories that kept me in cycles of pain and trauma. I inspected my roots, some rotted, and tended to them with compassion. I learned emotional regulation. I learned radical honesty.
I am still in therapy, and I am so grateful; for the therapy itself, and also for the privilege that grants me access to resources of care. I believe it should be a right to access the care we need: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Because of my own mental health journey, I know the necessity of care, and it is a value I hold close to my heart.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Empowered and inspired by the Tagalog goddess of the moon (Mayari), I honor the cycles and seasons of life through my multi-disciplinary approach to art. With tenderness, I explore themes of transformation and alchemy through a lens of radical honesty and resistance to oppressive and hegemonic ways of being. I am a movement artist, a writer, a stylist, a singer, a tarot reader, a budding ceramicist, and much more!
With movement, I specialize in burlesque: a performance art centered around tease. My intention in burlesque is to dismantle the preconceived notions on sensuality and erotic expression. I am most known for performing as the alluring Mayari Sirena. I have choreographed for and performed in countless shows around the city and in Texas, most notably: The Living Room Experience (May and July 2025, May 2026), Nocturna Cabaret: an Homage to the Showgirls of the Global South (September 2024), This is Bliss (November 2024), and DREAMWEAVERS (April 2026).
Poetry is the realm I love to inhabit as a writer. I utilize free verse form often in my work to embody breaking antiquated boundaries; my words are escrima sticks I wield to protect – to preserve. I have performed my poetry at various shows, such as DREAMWEAVERS and Who Taught You How to Love? (Houston, April 2025).
What I am most proud of in my craft is what sets me apart: I weave every thread of passion into a tapestry of love and care, chronicling full, embodied stories that honor my life and the lives of the people that came before me. I explore every artistic endeavor through the many vantage points of my various practices, creating layers and layers of depth in my work. I am never afraid to dive deep – I am radically honest in my art, not only about my own experiences in the world, but of the reality of that very world we live within. Truth be told – we live in violent and oppressive conditions that have been created by histories of colonialism, imperialism, heteropatriarchy, sexism, racism, and many other hegemonic structures of power. I am not and will never be afraid to speak about the injustices and violence that these structures and those who perpetuate them have inflicted on marginalized folx all over the world. It is my duty as an artist to make revolution irresistible.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
I have not had an official mentor — but I would like to credit some of the amazing artists who I learned from and have made me the artist i am today:
Yvonne Racz
Stephie Rodriguez
Wynter Grace Williams
Heaven Starr
Mario Juguilon
Fronrich Puno
Serese Brown and Fig
Carolina Bela and Zina
Khanh-Vy Tran
Cristal
Claribella Reeve
Angel
Jasmine Coro
LAMBO
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @friedchickenprincesss
- Other: https://mayarisirena.substack.com/
