Originally from Australia, Nerida is a vibrant, energetic, and bubbly personality who has been dancing for most of her life.
Nerida has represented both New Zealand and Australia internationally in Dancesport Competitions in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany and Latvia for the World Latin and Ten Dance events.
She has been training, performing and choreographing for the last 17 years, first appearing on New Zealand Television in 1999 on ‘Battle of the Ballroom’ – a New Zealand national ballroom dancing competition series held in Wellington.
In 2005, Nerida danced her way into the hearts of New Zealanders with TVNZ’s Dancing With The Stars. Working to strictly tight deadlines on the show, Nerida was involved in choreographing and teaching visually exciting routines suitable for inexperienced dance partner, Shane Cortese, to compete against other contestants. Shane and Nerida were voted runners up.
Later that year, Nerida choreographed the Rocky Horror Show. This was a magnificent feat, involving teaching non-dancers to move in sync as a group, keeping in character, and singing whilst wearing corsets and four-inch heels.
During 2006, Nerida taught the public to Cha Cha in the park at a charity event for the National Heart Foundation, promoting a healthy heart. Later in the year, she choreographed the 2006 QANTAS Media Awards evening, using three ‘Dancing With The Stars’ couples and six ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ winners and finalists. This involved a sequence of seven different dance styles. She was also invited to choreograph and dance in the final of TV3’s highest rating TV show of 2006, ‘So You Think You Can Dance’.
In early 2008, Nerida again danced her way into the ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Grand Final, this time with Monty Betham. The pair went from strength to strength each week to be the first male Celebrity finalist since series one.
Nerida has been teaching professionally for over five years, including competition and social classes catering to all levels of experience and is in high demand for corporate and team-building events, teaching staff to dance in very short time frames. She is also available for celebrity guest appearances.
