When Zara Lim was a young ballet student, she lived and breathed ballet. She trained at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School for two years and then was accepted into the full-time programme at The Australian Ballet School, where she stayed for four years. One would think she was on the track to a professional ballet career, but Lim says the mental pressure got to her and, at the end of Level 7, she decided she didn’t want to dance anymore. So, on she moved to law school, leaving behind any professional dance career.
For five years, Lim worked as a commercial litigation and intellectual property lawyer at both global and boutique law firms, and also served as associate to the honourable Associate Justice Efthim at the Supreme Court of Victoria. During this time, she started going back to ballet class (dance never leaves us, does it?), and after she retired from law in 2019 (for reasons unrelated to ballet), she took a little break from work. During COVID, Lim became more of a regular in ballet class and started posting videos of herself dancing on Instagram, when a friend from law school suggested Lim teach beginner adult ballet classes geared toward lawyers.
Although Lim had done ballet her entire life, she had never actually taught a ballet class. So, she began practise teaching on her mum and a friend during one-on-one lessons in her home. The seed was planted.
In April 2021, Lim held her first two free trial ballet classes at a local studio space, and the students were made up of her friends or people she knew from the law industry. In hindsight, she says she made the classes way too difficult for total beginners, but she kept at it and ran a few more classes before Australia went back into lockdown. But, like many institutions, Lim took her classes to Zoom and it’s there, she says, when her classes really took off.
After lockdown, Lim completed a teacher training with the Ballet Conservatoire, and did some teaching at the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet and for SCIMM Dance Company’s training programs. It’s been since mid-2024, however, that Lim has been focused mainly on teaching adult students, at her Kwan Studio which she rents out from Dance Factory in Melbourne.
“I love teaching adults because every single student that enrols themselves in an adult ballet class is there because they have chosen to be there!” Lim says. “Whether people just do one term of ballet or stay forever, I know that everyone is at my class because they genuinely want to learn ballet and enjoy it.”
There is also a social element that comes with teaching adults. “I have made lots of friends through my classes,” Lim shares. “Some of my long-time students are now my good friends outside of the classes, and also, a lot of my students have made friends with each other, too.”
Lim has chosen to run with this studio culture among her adult student community. She now hosts an End of Term Drinks event, when she and her students have lunch or drinks combined with activities such as mini golf, mechanical bull riding, bowling and even a private screening of the classic Center Stage movie. She also arranges a Costume Week for students to dress in a themed costume, and Tutu Week when students can choose to wear a tutu during centre work while learning a ballet variation excerpt.
“It’s a really big part of Kwan Studio now and a key factor in building the fun and social community we have!” Lim shares. “I love it, and so do most of the students. Not everyone has to dress up of course, but everyone can appreciate the costumes of the people who do dress up and enjoy the party. And I have noticed how happy, special and proud my adult students (some of them in their 50s) are to have the opportunity to wear a tutu.”
Lim admits that her ballet teaching venture hasn’t always been lucrative and that, in 2023, it became particularly bumpy. Up until then, she had been running her classes as a casual drop-in format. But, with her clients being busy adults, attendance and commitment were never consistent. “It caused me extreme anxiety each week, not knowing how many people were going to book into my classes or not book in (and not know what my income would be for that week),” she reveals.
So, Lim stepped aside and thought of a new approach. She now holds her classes in a ‘Term’ structure, where students must pay upfront for the 10-week term, and there is a strict cancellation policy. To still provide flexibility for her busy adult students, however, she does offer make-up classes within the terms.
“After I made that big change, everything suddenly took off, and the rest is history,” Lim says. “I went from struggling to fill three classes a week to now having 13 classes a week, most of which are fully booked each term. And students actually like having that ‘forced commitment’ of terms, as it helps them to remain consistent in their ballet practice.”
These days, Lim says 95 percent of her students find out about her classes through the digital sphere such as Instagram and likely word of mouth. She makes sure to cater to all sorts of adult students – complete beginners, adults who used to dance when they were younger, those on pointe and those wishing to learn from online courses. She says that Kwan Studio is the perfect size for her right now – the perfect amount of teaching and working.
“As much as I love ballet itself, and love teaching ballet to my students,” Lim says, “I love looking at this community of fun, friendly, social, passionate, creative, diverse and talented adult ballet students that I have built, and I feel very proud.”
For more information on Zara Lim and Kwan Studio, visit kwanstudio.com.au, or you can follow her on Instagram: @zaramlim.
By Laura Di Orio of Dance Informa.
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