Crystle Diño

Crystle Diño, a Pinay Chicago native, is guided by her passions in the visual, performance, and healing arts, which are rooted in her community and cultural upbringing. She unearths her story and investigates time, place, and relations by incorporating elements of the body, participation, and memory and by creating movement using repetition in patterns immersed in personal stories, collective experiences, and folklore.

Crystle embodies her freedom by training in Filipino Martial Arts and dancing, and uses Chicago House culture concepts of freedom, love, and empowerment as well as Babaylan consciousness as both the foundation and impetus for her “Folk Art Therapist” identity. As a folk art therapist, she works in Chicago community settings to hold spaces of empowerment and critical reflection through mind/body awareness and attention to cultural intersections while co-creating a paradigm of care that is meaningful for her community. Art Therapy is a Practice; it is Personal, and it is Political.