Nina-Clara Schnall

Nina-Clara Schnall (b. 1970) died peacefully in her home in Oakland, California, on Thursday, November 7, 2024, surrounded by loved ones. Nina was a writer, a dancer, a yoga instructor, a student of psychoanalysis, and an advocate for nature conservation and women’s health and wellness. She was born in New York City, and always considered herself a New Yorker, even after living in Oakland for more than twenty years. She often said that she had two homes: one in the city of her childhood, and one in her “treehouse in the Oakland Hills.” For Nina, creating a home meant creating a community, so she spent her life in the Bay Area cultivating a rich community of writers, dancers, musicians, yogis, and healers.

Before she settled in Oakland, she graduated from Pitzer College, earned a master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz, and completed her PhD fieldwork in Haiti. As a Fullbright Fellow, she arrived in Haiti during a time of hope and possibility, and worked directly with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Nina spoke French and Kreyol, and worked as a photographer and translator with the only Haitian Kreyol language newspaper, Jounal Libéte. It was there that Nina returned to her childhood love for dance, and in her own words, “discovered a country where everybody danced: in worship, in courtship, for political change.” Living in Haiti was an awakening for her, and a place she said allowed her to be reborn.

In Oakland, she began studying dance at BrasArte and the Malonga Art Center, and performed at San Francisco Carnival with the group SambaFunk! Nina also dedicated herself to the study of writing and healing, attending courses at The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC), and earning an MFA from the California Institute of Integral Studies, focusing on fiction, exploring the genre of the roman à clef (novel with a key). She published prose and poetry in both literary and psychoanalytic journals, and presented her work at events as varied as the Litquake Literary Festival and the International Psychoanalytic Conference on Sabina Spielrein. She was the creative director at Mountain Yoga, and developed a series of innovative workshops focused on writing, movement, and healing.

After she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2020, Nina devoted her energy to helping others. During what she called her “dance with cancer,” she became a certified yoga instructor, and created writing and yoga workshops for cancer survivors. She also participated in two medical conferences focused on ovarian cancer, and began work on a collection of personal essays and a blog about how to survive a cancer diagnosis, informing others about early detection and treatment, how to find drug trials, and managing symptoms and side effects. In December 2023, she created a successful dance-a-thon at the Claremont Athletic Club, raising over $20,000 for ovarian cancer research and support for those in treatment.

She was a beloved co-founder of the Mindful Writers group, and a member of Laguna Writers Workshops, where she co-facilitated and developed workshops on climate grief. A great lover nature, Nina often planned retreats on the Point Reyes peninsula, a place she often referred to as “Paradise.” She also created a backyard bird sanctuary at her home in Oakland, which was declared a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

Nina is survived by her parents, Susan Schnall and Peter Schnall, her brother Zachary Kern-Schnall, her sisters Tanya and Sacha Penn, her partner, Omari Weaver, and a large, diverse chosen family. A memorial and celebration of her life will take place in the near future. Until then, in lieu of flowers or gifts, the family requests that you please donate to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition (NOCC) in her name: https://ovarian.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/