All the way to the floor?
Absolutely! In fact, dancers benefit from regular practice “à terre.” Many professionals make it a part of their routine and there’s no reason you or your students cannot do the same.
Benefits
- Translating technique and alignment principles to the floor can provide information which a dancer can use to improve movement execution. It encourages concentration on alignment and efficiency of the muscles. The body moves through patterns common in ballet and other movement disciplines but free from the usual affects of gravity. This provides opportunity to correct bad habits and gain deeper understanding of movement principles.
- Floor barre is also a method favored by dancers working through injury. The techniques can not only be rehabilitative, but may also increase the dancer’s awareness of weaknesses and tendencies which may have led to injury in the first place.
- Floor barre may also be used before or outside of class to strengthen, tone, work, or warm-up the muscles in a way that will support the dance techniques performed in class. Even though floor barre may involve lying or sitting on the floor, it is definitely not rest for the mind or body and can actually awaken sensitivity to things are being ignored during vertical practice.
Floor Barre Methods
There are a number of codified floor barre techniques that are taught throughout the world. Most of the most well-known methods were developed during the mid-20th Century.
The Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique®
In the United States, The Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique® has been widely influential and, through the Floor-Barre Foundation®, has certified a number of practitioners world-wide. You can learn more about Zena’s work and the non-profit organization that promotes and preserves her legacy, at www.floor-barre.org.
A series of 5 DVD’s are available for purchase at the website. These include exercises for all levels of dancer, including professionals and young students. Truly teaching these techniques to your class requires a level of experience and understanding of the method. Dance instructors, however, will be positively influenced by the insights and work captured in the videos – I know my experience with the Series III video in college strongly affected me and my teaching.
A new book, Zena Rommett: The Art of Floor-Barre: Ballet Class on the Floor: A Conditioning Program for Dancers, Athletes, the Injured, and the Elderly
Barre au sol — Methode Boris Kniaseff
Also widely recognized is a technique developed by Russian dancer Boris Kniaseff in the 1950s. His barre au sol, has been carried on by dancers and teachers, Jacqueline Fynneart, Zizi Jeanmaire, Roland Petit, and Stéphane Dalle. According to Jacqueline Fynneart in an interview published at Danza Ballet, the technique is meant to be added to a traditional class (rather than as a replacement) and was “developed by combining Graham style floor exercises with classical technique.” Characteristically, Kniaseff’s barre au sol method is accompanied by music. A 3-DVD set by Stéphane Dalle introduces beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of the method. You can purchase these at Yumiko Takeshima’s online store.
Maria Fay’s Floor Barre
Maria Fay is a renowned teacher who has taught for the Royal Ballet School, the Royal Academy of Dancing, and other acclaimed schools and companies. Her floor barre technique has yet to be widely recognized in America but is practiced in Europe, Canada, and other locations world-wide. Only one teacher has been acknowledged by Fay and granted permission to carry on and experiment with her ideas and teachings. Protégé Christina Beskou is based in Athens, Greece and appears in videos detailing a Basic and Advanced session in Fay’s Floor Barre method. Excerpts of the videos are on YouTube (the basic video is embedded below) and can also be seen at Ms. Beskou’s website. Maria Fay’s Floor Barre book can be found at Dance Books, an international publishing house based in the U.K.
Other Resources
Other options on video include the New York City Ballet Workout DVD. The Floor Barre section is relatively short (about 10 minutes) and combines elements of a floor barre with Pilates-type mat work. You can get The Complete Workout, Vol. 1 and 2
A VHS titled Ballet Floor Barre: A Warm-Up and Conditioning Program has limited availability. Dance Horizons is one of the few places I found selling this. If you have experience with this video’s contents, share your thoughts in the comments below. I’ve seen it recommended on message boards but have never viewed it.
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Nichelle Suzanne is a writer specializing in dance and online content. She is also a dance instructor with over 20 years experience teaching in dance studios, community programs, and colleges. She began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. As a Houston-based dance writer, Nichelle covers dance performance for Dance Source Houston, Arts+Culture Texas, and other publications. She is a leader in social media within the dance community and has presented on blogging for dance organizations, including Dance/USA. Nichelle provides web consulting and writing services for dancers, dance schools and studios, and those beyond the dance world. Read Nichelle’s posts.
Great article! I recommend the Barre au Sol for Vaganova dancers. More than that, I recommend the traditional Baganda floor barre, of which little has been codified outside of Cyrilic (Russian). I am working with some Giddis, Marynsky and Bolsoi pedagog friends of mine to produce a DVD and book. It ain’t happenin’ anytime soon, folks. money isn’t flowing to such obscure projects, so wait a while, and it might happen.
Thanks Philip. Do let me know if your project comes to fruition!
Thank you for this article. I found it quite informative. I heard about floor barre briefly at a dance teacher’s conference, but I didn’t really know much. I have been looking for ways to help my dance students learn how to properly use their bodies correctly especially to help prevent injury as well. As trying to find ways to rehab my own body after recent injuries. I can’t wait to check out these resources and take this into my dance classes.
Hi I was taught Kniaseff floorbarre in the 1980’s by Lucette Aldous. I have altered it very slightly after having four children to enable anybody to benefit. My class has people ranging from 10-70yrars and is amazing for realigning bad backs, co-ordination, to general well being. I have had amazing feedback from my students which you can read on my website. Plus it has helped my dance students amazingly with their technique and flexibility. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough. Don’t think I could get through daily life with out it now!
I’m afraid I have to make a glaring correction about the so-called “Methode Knaiseff”: Note about the “Kniaseff” floor work: This work far pre-dates Boris Knaiseff. I learned it from three different Russian Pedagogues. Two come from the Vaganova tradition, the other, now dead, came from the pre-Bolshevik Imperial ballet tradition – long before Knaiseff was born. The Russian name for it translates to “gymnastique”, though, it is hardly gymnastics as we know it. It is a cross-training method that the rather anti-cross-training Russians developed to help dancers in training gain strength, length, musicality, and alignment. It is very athletic, unlike Rommett’s work. It -is- wonderful as Rebecca states. However, I would not teach it to injured dancers or those who are not already in full dancer’s strength. I would definitely modify it greatly for this, as it is likely that Rebecca does. The few exercises given on Dalle’s videos are exactly identical to the foundational movements to this very old physical training method.
But, specifically, the method’s origin (not pedagogy, nor development) has nothing to do with Boris Kniaseff, nor any of his students or Stephan Dalle, other than it was passed to them as it has been countless Russian and exSoviet state dancers for well over a century, as it has been to me and countless other dancers from the Russian traditions since the late 19th century.
It is not true that it is a combination of Graham or any other western method. It, in fact is not, nor has it ever been, “Methode Boris Kniaseff”, (other than Kniaseff passed it off as such), no matter how many claims, copy writes or other legalities have been attached to it. The source of this method can not be cited or attributed to any one mentor, but literally to hundreds of teachers through the 1930s to 1950s who developed it from the time of the Czar’s reign through the era of the “Iron Curtain”. After 1917, the floor work could not have left the Soviet Union other than the “white Russians” and defectors who brought it with them. Indeed, this was the case with Knaiseff.
I too love the method. Besides the glaring inaccuracy and attempt to co-opt this method as attributed to one recent pedagogue for purposes of profit, I actually love Stephan’s vids. Before he came out with them, some Russian friends of mine and I were thinking of producing a “gymnastics” video of this exact same work. We may still: Dalles videos gives the bare foundation of this method. There are many age-old extensions, variations and many many additions to what can be seen on this video, including breath exercises, compression exercises, (entirely left out of Dalle’s vid) and more: all these are part of this cross training well introduced by Dalle on the vids.
So, yes, I second Rebecca’s vote for this method, as well as Dalle’s well prosuced videos,….even though they should more accurately referred to as “Russian Gymnastique”, though no one has ever copy written any actual moniker for it.
The quote about Graham-related origins comes from an interview with Jacqueline Fynneart, a Kniaseff devotee and the person from whom Dalle has said he learned the technique: http://www.danzaballet.com/?p=2428
I definitely can’t defend or discredit her statement, or argue the rights and ownership of this method as this is not a research-based or peer-reviewed journal. Since teaching methods rarely come from nothing or out of nowhere, I should think it would not surprise many that Kniaseff may not have originated every aspect of what he and his pupils pass on. It would be nice to see more written on the origins of floor barre (I use this term in the generic sense — if anyone has published sources which readers can check out, posting them is welcome). And, it would be very nice to see more floor barre videos. Please let us know, Philip, should you decide to go forward with production! Thank you for your comments and for offering a bit of context.
Might also want to take a look at Fluid Floor Barre. It’s only a 2 min video on google, but it is lovely and really demanding. Sharon studied with Graham, Ailey/Truitte and Pepsi BEthel and it shows!
Fluid floor barre seems very nice. But ler’s face it; it is less focused direct alignment as Rommetts’s and no where near as athletic as the original floor barre, Russian Gymnastique (Knaieff). I also have a method, “Balletic Ballistics” which is also a knetic approach to floor work. It in no way is “floor barre”, as well, niether are actually any of the others. (Barre work is not done on the floor, and simply cannot be replicated as such, therefore, the term “barre” is actually a misnomer.) I too studied with Jimmie Truitte – 8 years. I’ll have to look her up! Jimmy rolled his eyes at the very idea of floor work. he didn’t even think much of Pilates! (I loved the gruff SOB! he was my mentor!) Long and short of it?, I’d never put my method nor the fluid work I jist watched anywhere near the effectiveness of the completely different standards of the Russian or Rommett versions. -P