Dreamshining or sunyaxah is a Creole-Indigenous form of performance art unique to the Kristang culture where the body itself is treated as a sacred, sanctified canvas or art space for the reification, manifestation, personification or embodiment of ideas, symbols, concepts, energies and/or relationships. Like many other art forms and cultural practices by Indigenous people and communities around the world, dreamshining is practiced with minimal clothing or outer wear as a result of this emphasis on using the body to represent the unconscious or to dreamshine.
Each dreamshiner tends to have their own particular interests, themes and focuses, usually tied to their own personal trauma and struggles, and their own particular genres or mediums in which they express their dreamshining. The dreamshining of the current 13th Kabesa of the Kristang Tuan Raja Naga Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang, for example, tends to take focus on themes related to the Creole-Indigenous embodiment of paradoxes, healthy approaches to queer sexuality, nakedness, vulnerability, authenticity, healthy playfulness, healthy body positivity and the obliteration of body-related trauma, taking healthy and reasonable pride in one’s (gay) attractiveness, sensuality and beauty; the genre that Kevin uses to express his dreamshining, meanwhile, is poems linked with tableau near-naked or fully naked pictures of his body that together are intended to stimulate metacognitive thinking and stereotype deconstruction about gay people, brown people, Indigeneity, homophobia and racism, and masculinity, and to showcase creole-Indigenous Kristang perspectives on the body, on trauma, and on physicality and desire and how these can be healthily expressed. Examples of Kevin’s dreamshining can be found on his website here. Other Kristang people may express dreamshining through dance, song, sculpture, theatre, graphic design, cartoon animation, other traditional forms of Kristang performance such as the mata kantiga, or any other performance medium that incorporates a strong focus on the body and the psyche in some way.