Post #5-Raising the Barre

“Don't hold on to the barre like “I might die", it's just ballet”. 

-Misty Copeland

The quote above is an accurate expression of exactly how I felt this week.
This week I have begun working on my technique, specifically barre work.

What is Barre?

Ballet class begins at the barre, and so does ballet technique. Barre develops strength and technique, speed, balance, flexibility, turnout, alignment, extension, articulation and coordination - all the things that ballet demands. Barre is where you work and maintain your skills and provide the direct preparation for the steps in the centre floor and during routines and performances. Barre is the basis to any ballet dance following. It warms you up and builds your technique, allowing you to focus on the details.

Ballet is very a very artistic art form, but it is also very technical as almost all the movements are based upon a set technique or syllabus. Because it is so technical, in order for me to properly regain the appropriate technique and training, I will be utilizing one of my favourite books, 'The Ballet Companion' by Eliza Gaynor Minden, which outlines all the proper technique and movements of ballet dance to assist me along this process.

Day 1

Below are some of the things I spent the day working on, mostly my alignment of the body, legs and arms, and the positions of the arms and feet.

From todays session in the studio, I learned a lot. Today for me almost felt like I had taken a step back. From my previous session of stretching, I felt very happy and content with the progress that I had made that I almost expected todays session to go just as smoothly. However, it did not. Having good turnout of the hips is an extremely important ability of the ballet dancer and what ballet dancers continuously strive to have. For me, turnout specifically always came easy to me and having good turnout just seemed like how my body was naturally constructed. But today when I went to into the positions of the feet, I could tell that this amazing natural turnout I once had, wasn't actually all that natural. It almost felt like my hips needed to pop out in order for me to get into the same positions I once used to! I then decided that I need a little more work before I could process and added some strength exercises to my outline which targeted my gluteus medium and pelvic floor muscles, so that I could improve my turnout and wake up those unused muscles. Because of this I decided that I had to rework my schedule and break my 'barre work technique day' into 2 so that I could dedicate more of my time to working on and perfecting my alignment before jumping into any of the next steps.

Day 2

Day 2 I was ready to jump back into the studio and get back to work. After the small setback I experienced after day 1, I now felt more motivated instead of discouraged as I know this is a process which may take time. Today I finally got to start working on my barre exercises and despite how good I was doing them or not, I was just happy to be doing it. I aways loved the beginning of ballet class because that meant it was time for barre. Barre allowed me to really focus on my work and almost zone into myself and out of everything else. I also can say that I think I did pretty good during this session in the studio. I worked on my plies, tendus, glisses, ronde de jambes, fondues, grand battements, ronde de jambe en lairs, fouettes, releves, echappes and all the barre basics. After todays session and being the first real time I got to do actual ballet movements (after all the preliminary stretching and alignment), I am excited for next weeks session where I can take it one step further and  work on my centre technique and actually get to the dance floor.


Minden, Eliza Gaynor. The Ballet Companion: a Dancer's Guide to the Technique, Traditions, and Joys of    Ballet. Simon & Schuster, 2005.