BALLET BODY(TM) BARRE
Barre3, The Bar Method, Pure Barre are just a few of the countless barre fitness studios across the country. Barre classes are very popular sculpt and tone workouts that integrate small isometric movements designed to work muscles to fatigue. Ballet Body(TM) Barre is a very different kind of barre workout.
Developed by former ballerina Roberta Senn, Ballet Body(TM) Barre follows the format of traditional barre classes ballerinas have taken for years to maintain their long and lean physiques and develop the strength required to perform at the highest level. The result is what Senn calls “the most beautiful bodies on the planet.”
Senn was discovered by Jerome Robbins on her very first audition after moving to New York City, who cast her in the original production of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway in 1964. She left the production a year later to pursue dancing in a ballet company, and spent many years abroad with the Geneva Ballet, Israel Ballet, and Iranian National Ballet (disbanded after the Islamic revolution of 1979).
When she returned to the US, she opened a ballet school in Great Neck, NY, which for 40 years has served as one of Long Island’s premier ballet schools. Senn, above, opened the Manhattan studio about 7 years ago, realizing what a great workout ballet training was too.
Ballet Body(TM) Barre is located on East 65th St. on the upper east side of Manhattan, nestled in the ground floor of a townhouse. Classes take place in a traditional dance studio with wood floors, flooded with sunlight from a skylight above. The class consists of yoga and ballet stretches, followed by the authentic ballet barre exercises dancers do everyday in class and to warm up before a performance.
Unlike barre fitness classes, Ballet Body(TM) Barre moves utilize the full range of motion required to dance. However, no dance experience is necessary in this easy to follow class, as I discovered when I took Ballet Body Barre Basic taught by Senn herself for Week 4 of 52 Weeks of Fitness.
The class began with seated, reclining and standing stretches shown above, followed by beginner ballet barre routines and accompanied by the classical music I recognized from watching many a ballet class with my young nieces. After barre was an arm workout and cool down, accompanied by the overture from Swan Lake. Gracefully moving my arms like a bird and up on my tiptoes, I could not help but feel like a prima ballerina.
The focus at Ballet Body(TM) Barre is “Lift & Lengthen to be Lean”, along with the motto “Turn Out to Tone Up” that creates the ballet dancer physique. Elongating the spine also makes you taller, reduces back pain, and improves posture, counteracting the constant downward pull of our cell phones and computers.
I returned last week to photograph a class with another Ballet Body(TM) Barre instructor Barbara Linz, shown in these pictures. I was mesmerized just watching her walk around the studio, demonstrating and correcting positions. Every step she took had the grace and elegance only ballet dancers have, but something we fitness enthusiasts can work to achieve as well. Look for a ballet or dance studio near you for beginner barre classes.
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