Dancing for fun – Eugene Weekly
The first clue that this is no ordinary aerobics dance class is the bare feet. Everyone in the Pleasant Hill studio – teacher and student – has taken off their shoes.
Next note: Instructor Kellie Chambers reminds students that the practice known as Nia invites them to follow the forms and embrace freedom. She has the routine, they have the power.
In Nia, a fusion of dance, martial arts and healing arts, there is a lot of scope to move according to your own preferences. Punches and kicks are thrown between cha-cha and grapevine steps. There are the slow katas of Tai Chi and subtle instructions for more efficient movements. And there are all kinds of music styles: pop, new age, electronic, jazz, disco, world, folk and indigenous.
Newbies often come with the goal of getting fit, but under Chambers’ guidance they discover something unexpected: Nia’s path in life is leading toward joy.
NIA – which stands for Neuromuscular Integrative Action and is pronounced NEE-ya – has been around for 40 years. The idea came from Debbie and Carlos Rosas, two California aerobics instructors who had great success with their Bod Squad studios in the late ’70s and early ’80s. That was the era of “no pain, no gain,” when instructors encouraged participants to “feel the burn” when they worked out.
For Debbie Rosas, however, everything changed when she approached a martial arts instructor, a sensei, to learn more about the belt system used to determine participants’ skill level.
“I had students who had been with me for six years, and I wanted to celebrate their years of dedication,” she says. That changed when she visited a dojo and followed the common practice of martial artists – going barefoot.
“My whole body woke up,” she says. “When I took off my shoes, I became aware of the joy of being in my body. That became the core principle of Nia, joy in movement.” She also introduced a belt training program for students who wanted to go deeper.
Today, Debbie and Carlos Rosas have gone their separate ways and Nia’s headquarters are in Portland. Under Rosas’s guidance, Nia has added more principles to the joy of movement. Participants are encouraged to find what works for them on the dance floor. “Your body, your way” is a mantra in class. “No pain, no gain” has no place with Nia.
Dancers strive instead for what they call “dynamic ease.” Teachers demonstrate a range of ways to perform the steps. That helps dancers find their own sweet spots and move in ways that don’t stress joints and tendons or lead to injury. And each routine includes time for free dancing, so participants can move to the music however they want. People of all sizes and ages take part in the classes. Some participate from a chair. Nia is all about it.
Chambers has been teaching for 11 years. And while her Pleasant Hill studio, nestled in the mall off Highway 58, may seem a little remote in the world of dance aerobics, her reach is global. Nia’s 1,200 teachers teach in 41 countries, and Chambers partners with others to offer dance retreats in Bali, Costa Rica and even Cambodia.
She is also a choreographer and has developed Nia routines that are part of a catalog available to all instructors. Videos of the routines are also available online for those who do not have access to classes near them. “Alchemy,” the latest piece she has co-developed with her Cambodian colleague Debbie Lee Van Ginkel, will be available in September.
Ensuring that each routine uses elements of dance, martial arts and healing arts, that it starts slowly, builds energy and then fades away, and that the music supports and inspires the movements is no easy task, says Debbie Rosas.
“What usually happens is that when I look at a piece, I have to go back and work with the choreographers,” she says. “Often they don’t listen to the music. The music doesn’t bring the movements to life, or the movements don’t bring the music to life.”
However, this was not the case with the piece created by Chambers and Van Ginkel.
“This work is very advanced in its musicality and the integration of music into the movements. It is a demanding routine that really pays attention to sound and movement details,” says Rosas.
Chambers, who teaches eight one-hour classes six days a week, fell in love with Nia immediately. She had been a dancer her whole life, but the realities of daily life – marriage and raising children – had pulled her away from the dance world. After a back injury, she heard about a class and thought it would be a good fit for her while she recovered.
“It was a Nia class. It was like a lightning bolt had struck me and it was like ‘welcome back home’. It was profound,” she says. “I felt connected and energized at the same time, and when the class was over I immediately wanted to do it again.”
Chambers isn’t Eugene’s only Nia teacher. There are several, including Dael Parsons, who has also been teaching for 11 years and has a studio south of downtown. Like Chambers, Parsons was immediately drawn to Nia after her first experience.
“I took a class. I really enjoyed it. I took another class and that night I had a lucid dream where I was born onto the dance floor,” she said.
It’s hard to say how many Nia practitioners there are, but at the Eugene Y, the numbers are rising, says Beth Casper, vice president of community engagement. When the new YMCA opened in December 2023, it offered two Nia classes. In January, the two classes drew 130 participants. Since then, the Y has added two more classes, and in June, the four classes had drawn 221 participants.
Parsons has also seen an increase in the number of participants in her classes, in part because she moved her classes to a nearby park during the pandemic, giving more people the opportunity to see Nia dancers moving to the music. Parsons, a myofascial release therapist, says what makes Nia special is its focus on pleasure.
“It’s radical,” she said. “It’s a radical act to allow yourself to prioritize pleasure.”
The students, in turn, say they have found a practice that goes beyond fitness.
“There are so many facets to Nia that I appreciate,” says Susan Lesyk, who has danced with Chambers for 10 years. “When we dance, I feel really energized, like my inner child is expressing itself with the freedom that this type of movement offers me. And then when we move into martial arts, I practice how to protect my body from injury when necessary, and then when we relax and focus on the healing arts, I quietly listen to my body so that there is both energy and respect.”
