Our Story
2015
Photo from A Walking Tour - LMCC Creative Engagement Grant
Beginnings: Parcon
Founder Andrew Suseno, an Indonesian-Chinese American movement educator, began blending Parkour (moving through urban spaces using walls, benches, and railings) with Contact Improvisation (a dance form where partners stay in touch and share weight and momentum).
In October 2015, Andrew co-taught an outdoor class that treated the built environment not as obstacles to conquer, but as partners to engage. By winter 2015–16, Andrew taught open classes that centered People of Color, and co-founded ParconNYC as a site-specific performance group.
2017
Our vision expanded: create safe spaces for people of color—and eventually people of all abilities, ages, genders, and sexualities—to explore movement and story.
As trust deepened, participants disclosed experiences of trauma, including sexual violence. We pursued specialized training to better support survivors and address the role of masculinity in preventing harm.
Andrew founded Parcon Resilience to integrate social justice and somatic practice.
Safety, trust, and survivor support
Community Residents at the Strauss House
2020
Men of Water- a men of color spin off group from Breathe Again!
Connection during COVID-19
When COVID-19 limited in-person work, we shifted online.
Breathe Again began as a weekly virtual space for BIPOC participants to process the pandemic’s impacts.
With the National Education Association, we designed summer programming in somatics for grief, rest, and anti-racist organizing—including culturally specific offerings for Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous communities.
Internationally, we partnered with Daloy Dance Company (Philippines) for Full Moon workshops.
A men-of-color group, Men of Water, also took shape during this period.
2021 & 2022
Handbook contributors
From Parcon Resilience to Moving Rasa
In 2021 we partnered with the National Organization for Asian American and Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence NAPIESV) and developed a handbook for Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) sexual assault survivors. This experience really deepened Andrew’s connections to his cultural roots. In 2022, Parcon Resilience rebranded to Moving Rasa to honor Andrew’s roots as a commitment to embodied transformation through movement & cultural consciousness.
2023& 2024
BIPOC Retreat
Growing capacity for AAPI survivors
We received an American Rescue Plan capacity-building grant to support culturally specific services for AAPI survivors of sexual assault, in response to COVID-19, the Movement for Black Lives, and a rise in anti-Asian hate.
Operations expanded: Nhu Nguyen joined as a lead facilitator, increasing programming on the West Coast and in Guam.
2025
Our first year as an independent nonprofit
This year has been a huge transition year for Moving Rasa. We shifted from being fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas to being our own non-profit with a Board. We also began to work with a development director. Leighann Kowalsky to help us better brand, apply for grants, and fundraise.
In the wake of a challenging grant landscape, we have also focused on research and design of a cooperative storytelling card game and a Movement Tarot deck, both of which have and are opening new doors to partnerships.
One participant shared:
"When we give in to just movement & community, like what happens in moving rasa, we are able to push against the idea of the outsider perceiving us and we can be who we are and embody our own masculinity."