LesLee Ames interviews Stephaney Robinson, Nia black-belt teacher, trainer and artist residing on Sullivan's Island, SC, about her experience with Nia for www.dance-on.net

Dance is a way of being human.

“It is healing. Learning movement for the purpose for self-healing that is what the white belt is." Stephaney Robinson, is talking about Nia.)
The Reason why this teacher extraordinaire chooses Nia to dance dance dance out of many modalities and forms is TOOLS...lots of tools for healing at the deepest levels.


Although dance is a very physical activity, for many, dance tends to reside in the emotional body. Nia allows us to bring our focus back to our body, putting emphasis on the physical body as sensation. Sensation based on pleasure, this is known as Joy in the body as sensation! And when we learn to be in the physical - we don’t have to be run by the emotions. We can utilize and release emotions and ENERGY. There are actually the 4 Realms: spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.
We can get hurt in physical body if we are not aware of that. If we get lost in our emotional sphere, our body isn’t able to take that kind of movement, speed, or energy. "When we know that the physical container is present by using the structure that Nia provides, then we can say okay,,, I am here. Now I can pump the emotional expression into the dance and blow the roof off the place…."

That leads to the Joy, which founders of Nia, Carlos Rosas and Debbie Rosas-Stewart, believe to be the Core of the Technique. Dance brings joy because, believe it or not, we are Joy and the dance connects us naturally with our humanity where we remember Joy on a cellular level.

“You need to know that when you step into that room, Joy will be available for you. Everything is rooted in joy. When I first started to move my body this way and create the sensation of Joy, I thought, wow, this is what I have been looking for a long time." As long as Nia stays rooted in Joy, more people will gravitate toward that.