Who is AIKI?
AIKI is a South Korean dancer, choreographer, and TV personality, who majors in the Latin and Hip Hop styles of dancing. Her stage name, AIKI, means “the height of a baby” (in Korean, “a-i” means “baby” and “ki” means “height”), as the dancer is only 5’22’’ (157.8 cm) tall.
AIKI’s Biography
- Birth Name: Kang Hyein (강혜인)
- Stage Name: AIKI (아이키)
- Date of Birth: September 7, 1989
- Zodiac Sign: Virgo
- Nationality: Korean
- MBTI Type: ENFP
- Instagram: @aiki_kr
AIKI’s Career
Around the winter vacation of her 3rd year of middle school (early 2004), AIKI went to a dance academy in order to lose weight, but it was an academy that mainly taught Latin dance, leading to her first encounter with this genre.
While learning dance sports as her main focus, AIKI gained experience by learning jazz size, broadcast dance, and hip-hop.
As she grew more and more devoted to dancing, AIKI started to cover K-pop dance everyday, eventually setting the goal to become a professional dancer and choreographer. According to AIKI, her teacher deliberately took her to big competitions and helped her see and experience a lot at a young age.
After attending a dance academy as a student for 3 years, AIKI started working as a dance instructor in 2008, when she was graduating from highschool. She also competed in Latin dance sports around this time.
It is known that AIKI auditioned for Mnet’s “Dancing 9” and made it through the 2nd audition, but discovered that she was pregnant and had to give up on the show. She then went on a hiatus as a dancer, but resumed her career after 1 year of giving birth.
In 2016, AIKI formed the dance duo “All Ready” with fellow dancer COCO (Salang Yang). As the world’s first female dance duo team that fused Latin and street dance, they were active while attending competitions and performances at home and abroad.
In 2017, a video of “All Ready” at the 2016 Seoul Street Dance Competition gained explosive views on SNS, leading to the duo being offered to participate in NBC’s “World of Dance”, an American dance survival show.
In 2019, AIKI and COCO participated in “World of Dance” Season 3. In this program where world-class dancers gather to compete, AIKI made her presence known in the dance scene and to the public by advancing to the final 4 rounds.
Despite such a great achievement at “World of Dance”, AIKI was unable to perform overseas due to COVID-19, and so started working on TikTok, making a name for herself on this platform. It was also during this year that AIKI established the dance crew HOOK with her students.
In 2021, HOOK participated in “Street Woman Fighter” and became the final runner-up.
Ever since, AIKI has been continuing her dancing career and joining TV programs as a famous personality.
Additional facts about AIKI
AIKI was born in Dangjin-si, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea, the first of 1 son and 3 daughters.
The dancer has a daughter named Yeon-woo who was born in 2013. She married her husband at the age of 24, immediately after graduating from college. Her husband – a researcher at an engineering school, is 4 years older than her.
AIKI has 3 siblings: Hye-min (born 1994), Mi-na (born 2000), and her only brother Seok-yoon (born 2006). Her parents own a rib restaurant.
She attended Hoseo Middle School, Shinsung University, and Sungshin Women’s University
She appeared in “High School Rapper 4” (Episode 8) and was a trainer on the show “My Teenage Girl”. She is also working as a dance professor at Dongguk University.
Some of her nicknames are Cream (Her husband is Cookie which makes Cookies & Cream), Kangkangju, and Jjang-gu (Crayon).
Source: Namu Wiki
