ABOUT US
Who We Are
Established in 2018, Zaiah Arts is a Carnival-Arts Dance Fitness brand that fuses Caribbean Carnival music and movement with Well-being. It was started as a direct response to the lack of diversity in the dance fitness industry for female-focused classes.
We believe movement can be medicine to heal the mind, body and soul, so we promote self-love and holistic healthy lifestyles through the power of mindfulness, community, Caribbean Carnival culture and hip-shaking, calorie-burning fun!
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OUR VALUES:
Community and Inclusivity
Body Confidence
Cultural Authenticity
Well being
Innovation
Consistency
Equality
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Meet The Team
Sophia Mackay is the Founder, Choreographer and Lead Educator at Zaiah Arts.
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As a Wellness in the Arts advocate, she is passionate about building confidence in people through dance and movement and creating inclusive, safe spaces for marginalised people to share, move and create freely.
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As a triple-threat performer and choreographer, she had her start in the Arts whilst training at Praise Academy of Dance Barbados. There she fell in love with Caribbean dance and trained in Caribbean folk, Dancehall, Soca and Jazz. After which, she returned to London and graduated with a BA in Musical Theatre on a scholarship at WAC ARTS in London.
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Outside of Zaiah Arts, Sophia is a West End Musical Theatre performer, credits including:
Offie Best Actress Nominee Bubbly Black Girl Who Sheds Her Chameleon Skin,
Olivier nominated Get Up Stand Up- The Bob Marley Musical and
Dirty Dancing International Tour.
Sophia Mackay - Founding Director
As Creative Director of the world’s largest Afro-Caribbean Dance company, Nassen co-leads a global community of 400 members in delivering transformational Dance workshops and classes developing and innovating the way we see health & wellbeing solutions. From his early days in education, Nassen found inspiration by focusing on how music and movement can improve peoples wellbeing.
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Over the course his study of Music and Business, Nassen fell into DJ’ing including working in Radio, producing demo tracks and engineering records. Throughout the huge journey of Music & performing arts, Nassen has built a name for himself in his community and has performed at the biggest music venues and largest festivals in the UK, such as Glastonbury, Notting Hill Carnival, Abbey Road Studios & The Royal Albert Hall.
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Nassen envisioned a strategy that bridged that gap between how music is a universal language that we all somewhat understand to allowing movement to become a part of the package - targeting issues such as depression and physical health.
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He is a believer in the power technology has to accelerate progress in health & wellbeing, Nassen is leading Zaiah Arts to harness data and intelligent automation for insight generation so that teams work as a united front, with expertise and purpose, to contribute to improving the world’s toughest health challenges.
Nassen Nagen - Director
Who We Have Worked With
NIKE
Worked in partnership with Limelight sports to deliver
an immersive Carnival experience of our signature class CARNIVALVIBES and as part of the Nike Rep Your Island Campaign.
