About

Umi IMAN is an Emmy-nominated artist, dance educator, and Indigenous art curator creating in Atlanta, New York, and Minneapolis. She comes from a Black American, Jamaican, and Tsalagi (Cherokee) Native American lineage. As an archivist of many dances from the African diaspora and a Jingle Dress dancer on the Southern and Eastern Pow Wow circuit, IMAN’s artistic practice focuses on dance and cultural practices as modalities that promote joy, self-discovery, release, and liberation.

She is also a founding member and co-artistic director of the dance duo Al Taw’am, alongside her sister Khadijah Siferllah. They are among the world’s first acclaimed Muslim hijabi dancers. Founded and managed by La’Kisha Hollmon, Al Taw’am has made a significant global impact, fostering storytelling and meaningful dialogue through dance residencies in Black and Indigenous communities worldwide

IMAN nurtures and shares her artistry across many different spatial contexts. She’s collaborated with many global communities and organizations such as Each One Teach ONE in Berlin, Volcano Arts Center in Hawaii, SE.S.TA in Prague, and many more.

She has brought her communities and wisdom into academia, having been invited to teach at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Minnesota, and previously serving on the faculty at Emory University and Spelman College — the nation’s top-ranked HBCU for 19 consecutive years. She considers her greatest accomplishments as an artist to be the continuation of her ancestors' legacy and the profound connection she feels with God and higher states of consciousness through art.

Currently, IMAN is expanding her artistic practice as the co-founder and executive director of Sequoia Ascension, a community organization focused on the well-being Black American and Native American communities through dance, wellness, and housing initiatives.

Rooted in her lived experience as a dark-skinned Black American, Caribbean, and Native, Neurodivergent, Muslim woman, and shaped by identities still unfolding, IMAN’s work reflects a multilayered sense of community and belonging. She leverages her platform to artistically amplify the voices and stories of the communities she represents, advocating not just for their survival but for their flourishing.