Staff profiles

Wendy Smith

Wendy Smith is the co-ordinator of Studio 202. She is trained in both Pilates and Massage and can provide treatment in remedial, myofascial release, and relaxation massage. Wendy has a background in dance and teaches Kinetics at a tertiary level in the Victorian College of Arts School of Dance. She danced with State of Flux Dance Company for 11 years and performed and taught extensively with them in Australia and overseas.

Wendy is a passionate supporter of the dance community and is also Australia’s only qualified Skinner Releasing dance teacher; a form of improvised dance, which she teaches at Studio 202.

Helen Gilfillan

Helen Gillfilan

After an extensive career in advertising as an art director, Helen decided it was time for a change and trained in the Australian Pilates Method in Melbourne in 2003. Since then, she has been teaching at various established Melbourne studios. Helen strongly believes in the body’s ability to heal injury through self-maintenance. She keeps up-to-date by attending workshops and conferences and maintains a rigorous training program for herself.

Helen also has a strong interest in yoga, which she has practised since childhood, working with the highly regarded teacher Manfred Finger in Johannesburg for many years. Helen is also a part-time visual arts student, with a passion for drawing and printmaking in wood-engraving and etching mediums.

Zac Jones

Zac

Zac has a dance background graduating from the Australian Ballet School in 1996 and has been dancing ever since. He also has 4 years of Pilates teaching experience obtaining his certificate with APMA. He has an interest in Aikido too, having trained and worked in this disciplines for many years. He is a black belt.

Currently Zac is involved in teaching strength training at the Australian Ballet School. When teaching Pilates Zac likes to use imagery to facilitate a deeper understanding of the body in movement.

Josef Lehrer

Josef’s interest in the body and movement began early, having danced from a young age. Currently he is a practitioner of Contact Improvisation (a contemporary dance form), the Pilates Method and Massage. Josef has been teaching Pilates for 5 yrs, beginning his training with the APMA and, more recently, completing his Cert IV in Pilates Instruction with the Pilates International. He also holds a Diploma of Remedial Massage. Josef enjoys letting the weave of his different body practices and treatment modalities inform one another.

Jo White

jo white

Jo has been teaching Pilates since 1998 and has been a part of the 202 team from its beginning. She is certified both through the APMA and Pilates International and has taught at various studios in Perth, Melbourne and Tokyo. Her interest in movement practices stemmed from her passion for dance, which has taken her to the far reaches of the globe (including Transylvania). Jo teaches ballet and contemporary dance at the Victorian College of the Arts and Chunky Move Dance Company. She is also a keen yoga practitioner and teacher.

Daryl Pellizer

Daryl has worked in dance & theatre throughout his adult life, performing with various Australian dance and theatre companies and playing roles in Australian television series and films. He has extensive teaching experience, working in diverse educational and community arts contexts including schools, tertiary colleges and universities. He is involved in teaching English as a Second Language, Adult Literacy, Theatre Arts and Drama, Pilates and Aikido. He completed the APMA teachers training course in 2004 and obtained his Cert IV Pilates Instruction in 2009 with the Pilates International Training Centre.

Daryl has many varied interests. He is a 4th Dan Aikido practitioner and likes permaculture and organic farming, Italian culture, food, and language, as well as motorcycling and camping.

Justine Dillon

Justine

Before being trained in Pilates, Justine trained from the age of four in classical, contemporary, tap and jazz, for which she has a degree in dance from QUT. Dance forms the core foundation of her life and as Pilates is the execirse 'choice' of dancers worldwide, teaching Pilates was a natural extension.

Justine has been teaching Pilates for seven years across a wide range of ages and class sizes all around Brisbane, and is now looking forward to introducing her Pilates style to Melbourne. She believes Pilates trains your body for a fit, active and creative life that allows you to enjoy it to the full.

Lee Jaaksoo

Lee has a dancing background, having began her dancing career at 7 years of age.

As a result of her background and experience, she has a strong interest in movement through the harmony and connection of body & mind.

Her qualifications include Sport Kinesiology in ACCM, PMA Pilates Instructor traning course, Thai Yoga Massage, CorpusPilates Foundation and Level 1 course, Power Yoga Level 1, Certification in PortdeBras Level 1 and Fitness trainer -Estonian Fitness Trainers Education

She also hold a Bachelor of Entrepreneurship from Estonian Business School, which includes studying in Spain for one year in San Pablo CEU University. In line with her entrepreneurial spirit and ambitions, she has a strong passion for sports, body movement and helping people achieve their goals in health and fitness through the balanced movements.

Phillipa Condous

Phillipa has 23 years of experience as a physiotherapist and has a masters degree in Manipulative Physiotherapy, specialising in dance injury and maternal health. She has also been teaching Pilates for 9 years, completing her education with the Pilates Certification Program at the Kane School of Core Integration with Kelly Kane, New York in 2000.

When she was living in New York she worked with Riverdance on Broadway, The Cunningham Company and was personal physiotherapist to Mikhail Baryshnikov and his company the White Oak Dance Project. Recently she worked with the Cunningham Company for the Melbourne Arts Festival in 2007 and the Australian Ballet.

Phillipa is inspired by dance, music and travel and enjoys cooking, playing tennis and camping with her family.

Elissa Lee

Elissa Elissa’s passion for the body & human movement stems from a long career in contemporary & classical dance. Having grown up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in Boulder, Elissa spends some time getting back to her hiking and camping roots and visiting family on the other side of the Pacific each year. Elissa is a Remedial Massage therapist specializing in spor ts, relaxation & myofascial release massage. She is also a lecturer in anatomy & physiology at the Melbourne Institute of Massage Therapy in Heidelberg.

Holly Huon

Holly Huon is a certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, having completed the first Feldenkrais Training in Melbourne in 1991 and she has worked with individual consultations (FI) and class work (ATM) ever since.

Holly has been involved in the organisational and professional development of the Feldenkrais method since its inception in Australia in the mid 1980’s. Her other qualifications include Physiotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Caroline Myss Archetypal Work. She has been a student of Oki-do Yoga for twelve years, and Buddhism for fifteen years.

Regarding her practice, Holly sees herself as a "pattern detector" and "shape-shifter", enjoying the challenge of even the most complex adaptive patterns a person gets into following injury, trauma or long term condition. She also enjoys the simplicity of early intervention.

With a love of adventure and family life, Holly "walks the talk", having spent several months of the past three years exploring the Northern Territory and The Kimberley Ranges. She loves spending time with her family and friends, reading, creative arts and movement.

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