Photo: Jane Markowitz for The Art of LifeThe Art of NIA Dance with Jane
Her father was a legendary healer. Her mother was a great and artistic beauty. In Nia, Jane has found her place in her generation and community.
She was dancing in utero, reports her mother. As a child, she was invited to study with the little boys and girls at the Royal Ballet School in London, England, but preferred to stay at home in Toronto to train. As she matured, her body departed from the standards required by the National Ballet, and she spent years nursing dance injuries and grieving the loss of her greatest hope. Later, as a career schoolteacher, she was instrumental in bringing Dance to the Ontario school system as a secondary credit course. She has since served as Head of Dance at the prestigious Claude Watson High School for the performing arts, and authored a pedagogic textbook for teachers of dance in Ontario.
Enter Nia…..Neuromuscular Integrative Awareness…..the merging of magic, music and medicine into a single alchemic practice. Nia embraces all aspects of holistic, systemic movement, delighting practitioners and changing lives.
While in her forties, Jane found a Nia class in her local community centre, and began to study, train and teach in realms she had only imagined. Currently she has achieved the highest level of teacher training, with the earning of a Nia Black Belt in July of 2009. Her classes synthesize music, movement, kinaesthetic mindfulness, sensory awareness, and poetic readiness; she explores both form and freedom with her students, who come in search of fun, fitness, healing, self-knowledge, and community.
Jane’s students meet every Thursday evening for a class at 7:30 pm. Classes finish with silent personal reflections on world, community, and calendar events. Recent themes have included self-love, vision, flexibility, and the nature of giving - all evolving from mindful, transformational dance. Thus, lively movement is taken inward to influence the neurochemistry of daily experience, thus healing mind, body, heart and spirit. Jane calls this The Work of Nia, and it is being done all over the world.
"Love is in the air", she smiles. "I love all my classes, and my Art of Life Nia sessions are really special for me."
Photo: Jane Markowitz for The Art of Lifelinks:
nianow.com: Jane Markowitz's Page: A sensory-based movement lifestyle that leads to health, wellness and fitness
niac.ca: Jane Markowitz's Class Schedule
facebook: Jane Markowitz
No comments:
Post a Comment