Wise Fool People

Discover the individuals who fuel Wise Fool’s mission with their diverse talents and unwavering commitment. Meet the remarkable team and visionary board guiding our journey towards a brighter future.

Alishiya is dedicated to social justice and working alongside diverse communities in many forms. She has worked with youth since 2013, working for a social justice non-profit, Jerusalem Farm leading youth on home repair and hospitality sites in the diverse community of Northeast Kansas City, MO.

She started her circus training in 2012 with hula hooping and is a certified yoga instructor, receiving her 200-RYT in 2015 from Siddhi Yoga in Dharmshala, India. She has been teaching both youth and adults since. Moving to New Mexico in 2016, she became an AmeriCorps VISTA with Santa Fe Birth to Career/ Opportunity Santa Fe/ Mayor’s Youth Cabinet supporting extended learning programs in Santa Fe, including a summer program between the City and Santa Fe Community Educators Network.

Alishiya began training with Wise Fool New Mexico in 2016 and has performed in BUST and CircAspire.

Alexis, who also goes by Lex, is an artist and mover.

Originally from Southern California, they first discovered movement arts through fire spinning, and developed a love for choreographing group fire performances. They have premiered group fire acts at Wasteland Weekend and Burning Man Conclave with performance troupes Burning Sensation 2012, Wretched Embers Collective 2014, Pyrophylactics 2018, and Pyrokitten 2022. Lex currently spins poi, 3-poi, fire fans, and rope dart; they are a founding member of Santa Fe Flow Collective as well as a performer under Wildfire Entertainment Agency.

Lex was introduced to aerial arts after moving to Santa Barbara, and started training on lyra under Autumn Lotus & Katelyn Carano in 2016. She is enjoying the process of deepening her connection with her favored apparatus, and has begun to dip a toe into aerial performances since joining Wise Fool.

Lex is formally trained as an illustrator with a BFA from Laguna College of Art + Design, and made the move to Santa Fe after longing to find a community of artists they could call home. They are also currently being trained in a tattoo apprenticeship.

Board of Directors

About Nayeli

Dr. Nayeli Navarro is a New Mexico Licensed Doctor of Oriental Medicine and is NCCAOM certified in Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine and Herbalism, with over a decade of birth work experience as a Full Circle Doula (International Center for Traditional Childbirth) and as a midwife assistant.

She graduated from Southwest Acupuncture College in Santa Fe, NM in 2014, and holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from The University of Arizona, Tucson (1998).

She has been an active Wise Fool NM parent since 2018 and is a proud mother of a young social circus lover.

About Liana

Liana Giovando is a Librarian and Principal Consultant at Pertinence, a research and consulting firm dedicated to anchoring libraries and their patrons at the center of learning and opportunity.

Circus has brought Liana community, courage, and clarity that she aims to return through service on the Board of Wise Fool New Mexico.

About Kristen

Kristen Woods is an artist and leader in her community.

Kristen is a Nimble Arts certified aerial instructor. She received a MEWP (Mobile Elevated Work Platforms) and Wire Rope and Rigging certification from the IATSE 480 training center. Having worked at the Santa Fe Opera, on television, and events and shows around her state, she is a performance artist specializing in aerial acrobatics, stilt-walking and clown. Kristen first started at Wise Fool while taking BUST in 2011. Kristen also practices photography and makes art as often as possible however she can and wherever her ideas take her. Kristen believes that circus has magic for everyone.

She is currently working as a Program Manager in the Youth and Family Services Division at the City of Santa Fe, performing a variety of professional and administrative duties related to grantmaking, planning, organizing, coordinating, and implementing programs and services. One of her main areas of focus is contracts, funding, and programs specific to homeless services.

About Jo

Jo is a queer artist, performer, teacher, organizer, and activist, who has been creating hand wrought visuals, physical theater spectacles, and community arts experiences for 35 years.

A founder and director of Wise Fool New Mexico, Heartfull Revolution, Wise Fool Puppet Intervention, and In The Street Theatre Festival, they have designed and led arts programming for youth and adults across states, borders, and cultures in over 250 school and community settings, including a consistent visiting artist presence in the Santa Fe Public Schools for 25 years.

Jo is a settler of european descent living on Tewa lands north of O’gah P’ogeh where they consult for non-profits, make puppets and prints, and facilitate movement and arts experiences to decolonize our imaginations and inspire connection, celebration, and liberated futures.

About Tina

Wildfire Tina is a dancer and fire performer in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She began her journey into these arts in 2016.

She co-founded a female fire performer collective called FemPyre in 2017 and performed with PyroTex at Burning Man 2018. She was the assistant director and performed with Aruna Fire at Burning Man 2019. She has danced with Mosaic Dance Company in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and currently co-leads Santa Fe Flow Collective.

In 2023, Tina launched Wildfire Entertainment Agency in New Mexico, and she is in the process of expanding. She provides a variety of entertainment for parties and events across New Mexico. When she’s not performing, Tina is a full time high school educator, a parent, and a social media content creator. She’s a gardener, a yoga teacher, a community activist, and a poet.

About Kim

kim gryphon is a queer/non-binary writer, educator, and organizer who lives and works in O’gah Po’geh.

They aim to create work in community to disrupt the dominance of racism and settler-colonialism, to smash heteropatriarchy in thought/action, and to contribute to new narratives for gender, sex, and queer love.

They are always becoming the badass they want to be and shapeshifting to support collective dreams in coming true.

About Aries

Aries Jo (they/he) is a nonbinary artist, performer, educator, and community organizer in O’gah Po’geh (Santa Fe). Aries is the Donor and Alumni Relations Manager at New Mexico School for the Arts, and has a professional background in marketing and development. He is also a co-founder of Queer Community Care, a mutual aid organization that provides free resource-share events to the queer community and beyond. They are a founding member of Quiver and Tempt Society, Santa Fe’s only all-queer burlesque troupe. Aries has directed, produced, and performed in many QTS productions under the stage name “Daddy Stardust” including “ICONS: Y2K,” “Circus of the Damned,” and “Abort the Court.”

Aries is also a lived-experience peer coach, specializing in support through grief, queer and polyamorous relationships, and gender exploration. They were a provider with Intrepid Therapy Collective for 2 years, now offer sessions as a freelance coach. He holds an MFA in Visual Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and enjoys creating sculptures that explore the ephemeral nature of time and being (including Pearl, the giant puppet that was featured in Beyond the Binary at WiseFool!) Aries is passionate about social justice, dungeons and dragons, and their two cats, Paunchito and Lil Frankie.