A Dance Craze, Sans the Dance

by Harry Wessel • photographs by Greg Johnston

The barre is ballet’s iconic horizontal handrail. Now it’s anchoring the hottest trend in fitness workouts.

Two barre-workout studios recently opened within a mile of each other in Winter Park: barre54, which opened in May; and The Bar Method, which opened in July.

Barre54 is independent while The Bar Method is part of a national franchise. Both look to capitalize on the nationwide barre buzz, spurred by celebrity shout-outs from the likes of Madonna, Kelly Ripa and Drew Barrymore.

“It works every part of your body, but you stretch as you go so you’re not so sore,” says a beaming Patty Peelen after a recent weekday morning workout in The Bar Method’s carpeted studio.

Peelen, 54, jokes that she was “the worst and the oldest” of the eight women in the hour-long session, but she nonetheless enjoyed the challenging workout and appreciated its safety. “You can’t hurt yourself. It’s a group workout, but you get individual attention,” adds Peelen, who has osteoporosis but stays active with tennis and barre workouts.

While they may be trendy, barre workouts are neither faddish nor new. Like most barre studios around the country, the two spanking-new Winter Park facilities trace their body-sculpting technique to the teachings of Lotte Berk, a gifted dancer who fled from Nazi Germany to England in the 1930s.

Berk later developed a series of exercises based on her classic ballet-barre training, and in 1959 opened a studio in London. One of her American students bought the rights to the name and opened the first of many stateside Lotte Berk Method studios 40 years ago in New York City.
Berk, who died in 2003 at age 90, was described in a New York Times obituary as creating “a no-nonsense system for achieving slim waists, trim thighs and taut bottoms…blending elements of yoga and dance with stretches and pelvic gyrations.”

Her signature studios are gone, but Berk’s method lives on at The Bar Method, barre54 and hundreds of other independent and franchised studios across the country, with brand names like barre3, Physique 57, Pure Barre and Cardio Barre.

Karen Moreno, owner and instructor at The Bar Method in Winter Park Village, says the differences between barre workout programs are subtle, with some offering higher intensity levels than others.

The Bar Method, founded 10 years ago by a Berk protégé, hews closely to Lotte Berk’s version, says Moreno, a petite mother of three and former elementary-school teacher. The emphasis is on safe muscle sculpting rather than an aerobic workout, she notes.

“You’re not pounding the body. It’s intervals – your heart rate goes up and down. You work the muscles deeply, with small isometric movements, always followed by stretching,” Moreno adds.
Debbie Gray Hall, who manages barre54 at Hannibal Square, says barre workouts include elements from Pilates and yoga. Muscles are isolated, worked to the point of exhaustion and then stretched, “creating long, lean, dancer-type muscles. You work on every part of the body, with the focus on areas important to women: the inner and outer thighs, the seat and lower and upper abs.”

In other words, barre workouts offer the prospect of achieving a dancer’s body – without dancing. While the basic method was designed by a dancer and is heavily dependent on an apparatus associated with ballet, barre workouts involve neither dancing nor ballet. “Anybody can do this,” Hall says.

Moreno agrees, claiming that barre-workout newbies who attend regularly – three or more times per week – will start seeing changes in their body within four to six weeks, whether or not they have any dance or fitness background.

She demonstrates one of the isometric exercises for the thighs. Standing sideways to the barre and holding it with one hand, she pushes herself up onto the balls of her feet. With her back erect, she slowly squats about a third of the way down, pauses, and then partially elevates, repeating the motion several times.

More advanced students “will go down further and come up less,” she explains, while beginners won’t go down as far and will rise up higher. When proper form isn’t followed, trained instructors make verbal corrections.

About two-thirds of a barre workout involves actual exercises at the barre, Moreno estimates. The remainder includes work with light hand weights, stretching straps and exercise balls.
“It’s not dancing, but I love the incorporation of dance principles,” Moreno says. Instead of the “hooting and hollering” common to many dance-fitness sessions, “everyone gets into a zone” and concentrates on the muscle-specific exercises.

“It’s a tough workout that only gets tougher. But anyone can do it.”

Barre Workout Studios
The Bar Method
Winter Park
480 N. Orlando Ave., Ste. 132
Winter Park Village
(407) 539-0099
orlando-winterpark.barmethod.com

barre54
444 W. New England Ave., Ste. 101
Hannibal Square East
(407) 622-7014
barre54.com

Dance Workouts
Barre workouts do not involve dancing. If you’d rather dance your way to fitness, here are some alternatives:

Arthur Murray
Winter Park
1271 S. R. 436, Casselberry
winterparkarthurmurray.com  
(407) 673-7339

Dance Trance Fitness
1828 Edgewater Dr., Orlando
dancetrancefitness
(407) 595-0901

JAZZERCISE
Various locations
jazzercise.com

Orlando Belly Dance
6900 Aloma Ave., Winter Park
orlandobellydance.com
(407) 579-9765

Salsa Heat Dance Studio
10685 E. Colonial Dr., Orlando, plus five other Central Florida locations
salsaorlando.com
(407) 275-0943

Zumba
Various locations
zumba.com