Nelia Miller graduated from LMU summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in theater arts and a minor in vocal studies. Since then, her work has focused on the interdisciplinary space between physical and vocal performance. She has performed in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art and High Concept Laboratories with Mozawa Theater Company and with MacArthur Award-winning director Erica Mott for her international multidisciplinary project, Mycelial. Nelia's work includes performing with The New Colony, Walkabout Theater Company, Collaboration, 1MPF, and at the Chicago Fringe Festival with Lost Geneva Theater Project. Nelia has been a member of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble since 2017.
Nelia is currently touring her solo show, Cetology, which she has performed at Links Hall, Chicago Physical Theater Festival, Curious EATS Festival, and with Chicago Danztheatre as part of their playwrights festival in 2017 and The Forward March of Women in 2019.
Nelia was drawn to LMU instantly, attracted to the promise of a fully-rounded theater education and she uses the creative problem-solving and artistic questioning skills she learned at LMU in every new project. One seminal experience was the Bonn-Moscow study abroad program, which shaped her interest in interdisciplinary physical theater, and she continues her studies nationally and internationally with fellow performers and teachers working with Grotowski, Suzuki, Butoh, and Roy Hart practices, Alexander Technique, and Integrative Performance Practice.
Her passion for education continues, and she has studied BMC, Developmental Movement, and somatic practice at Naropa University with Erika Berland and Wendell Beavers, the co-creator of Viewpoints with Mary Overlie. She studied Grzegorz Bral's Coordination Technique in London with Polish theater company Song of the Goat, and received a scholarship through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival to study the use of integrated multimedia in theater with London-based Anomic Theater Company at CSU's Summer Arts. Her time at LMU taught her how to continuously ask questions and make very messy art.