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Accredited Nia Instructors with the Nia Australia Association

Zoe Phillips

Hi
I am Zoe. If you read further you will discover that I accidentally discovered Nia. And like many who make the discovery I was amazed, inspired and excited. It offered so many different perspectives on moving, exercising and the motivations for doing these.
I think what I love most about teaching Nia is that I feel like each class I teach I am giving and receiving such wonderful gifts. I give away with abundant joy and receive with pleasure. Nia seems to foster a generosity of spirit in all of us, a wonderful shared secret that we want to tell everyone about!
Below are some of the things my students have said about the classes. Maybe you will come along a try it out.
Welcome!!
Zoex

Classes

Sundays - 4pm - 5pm
Venue - Cecil street studios, 66 Cecil street, Fitzroy

Contact Details

Phone - 03 83006612
Mobile - 0408213448
Email

Student Feedback

Nia is a unique, liberating and free-flowing dance
experience.  I look forward to my weekly Nia class to release,
express and be uplifted by it's distinct style and rhythm.  I
have searched for a dance class like Nia for years!  
Cath

Zoe is a fabulous teacher. She is great fun and a pleasure to watch.
Her enthusiasm for movement and for Nia really fires my own sense of
fluid creativity. I love her classes; there's always something new I
find out about myself even if it's just that move in very
predictable ways. I like the Nia class with her because it encourages
me to move in different ways and break the same old patterns.
Deborah

 

After attending Zoe's Nia class for several months I am really appreciating my increased physical coordination and cardio-vascular fitness. I am enjoying learning about how my body moves and how each movement makes me feel. Zoe is clearly a very experienced dance teacher and I really like the way she celebrates each movement and encourages me to do the same. Blessings on the dance!
Cinnamon

Thankyou so much for the very enjoyable Nia classes. I am finding my mobility increasing,increased self esteem and well being. The movements are both challenging and creative without the total focus being on exercise. I look forward to continuing with Nia and have enjoyed both programmes so far. Can't wait to learn more and continue to groove. Who
said 'no pain, no gain' hasnt tried Nia
Sue

I find the class fantastic exercise and it has allowed me to find creativity within
movement that I did not know existed. I am finding that the music enables
me to keep the exercise going long after I would usually have given up, yet
I do not tend suffer any adverse effects of having over exercised ie
soreness or pain. I find I am walking with a spring in my step and a
looseness in my joints after only a few weeks.
Zoe 's expertise in the area of dance and her warm personality makes the
class fun.
Linda

NIA is a really enjoyable and fun way to exercise. I often find exercising a bit of a chore but I really look forward to my NIA classes and get annoyed if I have to miss a class.
You take the class at your own pace and style so it's suitable for everyone. Since starting NIA, I feel more lively and am enjoying being more active generally.
Zoe is a wonderful teacher whose enthusiasm brings the classes to life. I have recommended NIA to my friends because it is such as great way to exercise.
Allison

Maureen’s article

I’m a reasonably fit woman in my early forties. I’ve dabbled in various types of yoga, aerobics, pilates but have stoically avoided the middle age tendency to rediscover my youth - and join a dance class. African dance, belly dancing, Jazz, Tap; I just can’t do it. Not that I don’t admire people who do, I would love to have the freedom to let it all hang out, to rise above the social morays that might (and probably will) otherwise reduce me to a chardonnay-sipping, soap-watching, elderly-before-my-time blob. It’s just that I’m way too self conscious to entertain the possibility of performing - badly - before an audience who are applauding my bravery rather than my skill. And usually, if you join a dance class there comes a time when you have to perform.

And yet I have always loved to dance. When I was a teenager I did a dance class and I learnt to fly – no really. The release, the leap, the bound, the unselfconscious souring – it’s better than drugs. Yet these days I’ll only dance in a dimly lit pub, assisted by copious amounts of alcohol, hindered by the thick haze of toxic smoke.

Amazingly, the day I discovered Nia, my friend Vicki had just been pondering why it was that no one had harnessed the joy of dance and the necessity to exercise and packaged it up. She was picturing the Bus Stop with a bit of a Sharpie routine. Nia offers that and a bit more.

I went out of curiosity really and arrived with a sinking feeling that I had made a big mistake. The studio at the Northcote town hall is, at least, dimly lit but the instructor is clearly a ‘dancer’ with limbs that extend forever and move like liquid silk – a body that defies nature. I feel momentarily box-like, a rock-filled bean bag, an upright beached whale, my breasts feel pendulous – an entirely other being, inappropriately adjoined to my chest - my feet fall over themselves – I’d like to leave.

Zoe Phillips, my instructor, says that “NIA is an entirely new philosophy of exercise: whole-body, expressive movement, rather than repetitive drudgery that has become the de rigour of fitness”. She discovered NIA almost by accident. Clearly some accidents are meant to happen. Coming from a background of contemporary dance and having dabbled rather soullessly in aerobic classes, she was amazed to find a class where she could “dance her heart out” within an atmosphere that embraced individuality, respected the body, celebrated dance and also offered an amazingly safe cardiovascular workout.

“I love teaching NIA classes. I love telling everyone to find the easiest way to execute a move./.. without effort. I think by removing the effort we discover our joints, we feel the fluidity and ease that our joints give us. We free up the body that has mistakenly been trained to grip and lock which can only inhibit movement.”

NIA is about adapting movement to your own personal rhythm and comfort level allowing your body to be guided in discovering “dynamic ease”. It awakens feelings and sensations throughout your entire body. The intensity of the moves is adapted for varying levels of fitness and strength. “It’s the body’s way of creating health through movement. It is a holistic and immensely satisfying practice that shatters the tired-out mould of the modern workout. Getting fit and healthy through pleasure is the way to heal, and is the key to health” she says.

 “I am offering an environment where students of all ages and fitness levels can unearth their own unique potential while gaining body awareness, cardiovascular fitness and healthier bodies. A healthy body feeds a healthy mind feeds a healthy body!”

Music is essential; exotic, funky and richly diverse Zoe says the music provides a place for experiencing the “joy of movement”.

After ten minutes with Zoe, I think I am Zoe. After twenty minutes I’m Isadora Duncan, in my own world, unselfconscious - I’m fluid, long-limbed and rhythmic; light as a feather. I’m dancing, I’m laughing, I’m having fun and in the breath of a ballerina – it’s over.

Nia is for everyone.

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