Aiano Nakagawa

Aiano Nakagawa is an Oakland based queer, mixed, big bodied dance artist of color working towards liberation through education, healing, and community-based creative practices. As an M.A. candidate in the Women, Gender, Spirituality, and Social Justice department at CIIS, Aiano works to develop a deep and practical understanding of intersectional and decolonial justice to inform her work/practice in all areas of life. As a full-time faculty member at Luna Dance Institute, Aiano works with dancers from infancy to adulthood, with a specialty in family dance and ECE. In addition to her work as a dance educator, Aiano is the founder and creative director of Art for Ourselves (artforourselves.org), a community-based online publication dedicated to centering the stories and voices of the QTBIPOC creative communities.