Window Papers no. 1: CJ Tio

Welcome to Window Papers, a look into the lives of the creatives who’ve found their way to CLBHUIS.

I met CJ about a year ago at a CLBHUIS Funk Night at Chuck Studios. We were both wearing the same shoes, Camper shoes with a strange cartoonish toe cap. It was the first time I’d seen someone else wearing my favorite pair. That felt like enough of a reason to talk.

We ended up discussing polyamory, long distance relationships and he taught me line dancing.

For this piece, I met CJ at a Thai restaurant in Amsterdam. His pick, shoutout to NK Thai. I’ve biked past it dozens of times without noticing it. Unassumingly delicious. This was my second man-date of the week, actually. But that’s beside the point.

CJ has a Filipino background. He warned me about the spice levels. When I confessed I was craving noodles with chicken, he nudged me toward something more adventurous. I respectfully declined. He ordered the soup.

CJ immigrated to Canada when he was 10, moved to the U.S. a few years later, and settled in Amsterdam after university. Across the Philippines, Canada, and America, he has been grappling with questions of identity: who he is, what it means to not fit into the molds society offers you, and how to find yourself when there’s no clear direction laid out.

When he came to Amsterdam, something shifted.

“How’d you first hear of CLBHUIS?” I asked him.

A friend brought him to a collage night.
At the time, there was something nagging at him, an idea without form yet. 

A queer line dancing club.

You might not immediately associate line dancing with a Filipino-born, queer American living in Amsterdam. I didn’t either. But after dinner, it made sense.

For CJ, line dancing is not about any specific steps. It is about structure, repetition, a trance like connectivity. It is about creating a space where people can arrive as they are and leave slightly more connected than when they came in.

CJ is a walking collage of a person. Culture, queerness, migration, taste, community. Piece by piece, he paved his own path and found strength in that construction. 

His line dancing club became an extension of that strength.

What started as a small idea now brings together hundreds of people per session. It has grown into something bigger than novelty. It is a dynamic community of newcomers and year old veterans, where margins become the center. It lifts up the queer community through something joyful, slightly odd, and completely sincere. 

Two hours into dinner, I found myself saying things I did not expect to say. Sharing thoughts I had not planned to share. We left with plans for me to read poetry at one of his open mics, another space he helps shape. Him promising me it's a great way to become comfortable in vulnerability, something I am working on myself.

CJ reminded me that creativity is architectural. Building places for people to stand strong on a foundation created by themselves.

Some people search for belonging.
Others design it.

CJ is the latter.