What is a Ballet Barre?

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Mikael Monson and I'm an instructor here at Virtuosity Performing Arts Studio in Camas, Washington and I'm here to tell you about ballet barre and what it is. The Ballet barre is an essential piece of equipment for our ballet class. It's used mainly half of the class; usually thirty to forty five minutes in each technique class. It's something that supports us while we do exercises. It helps us so that we don't have to concentrate so much on balancing, but we can hold on to the barre and concentrate more on our technique in our legs to begin with. This ballet barre is a portable bar which is very very convenient. You can bring it to the theater if you have performances. You can move it in and out of different studios; different rooms. With this barre, you can also change the height of the barre. So with the older girls you can have it up higher and then with the younger girls you can lower it so it's their height. There's also another barre that's mounted onto the wall and that is not portable. That stays in the studio. The plus size, side of that bar is that it's more sturdy, it's there to stay, it hardly breaks. The portable barre can be a little bit wobbly sometimes especially if you get too many girls on it. But over all, the barre is something that we need as dancers and we'll always use; it support us and helps us find our center and is an essential part of our ballet class."