Lifestyle Mirror

Who would’ve thought that Black Swan would kickstart the return of ballet? With Sutton Foster’s small screen debut in Bunheads, a reality show about ballet school (that looks promising enough to be a new guilty pleasure) called Breaking Pointe, and First Position, the documentary that rocked the film festival circuit, it seems like the art form is all over the television and the news.

Fashion is, of course, already onto the trend. Christian Lacroix’s costumes for the ballet are now on exhibit at The National Costume Museum in France. And Valentino Garavani is following his footsteps with designs for the New York City Ballet, which previously featured pieces by Rodarte.

Ballet is also becoming a fast source of inspiration outside of cultural institutions, such as the gym. (Or, in this case, the highly-designed, very urbane workout studio.)

“Most people want to achieve the dancer’s body,” says Brice Hall, a co-founder at Bari Studio. “The issue with the craze right now, however, is that people think they can achieve this by simply doing different ballet routines at the barre. That approach is entirely misguided.”

So Hall, along with a couple of other like-minded workout enthusiasts, developed a workout philosophy that incorporates ballet methods to enhance and tone the body. His mixed bag often results in more reward for his well-heeled clients. “We can’t expect one approach to produce the same results for everyone. We have to remember that successful ballet dancers are very well developed in other areas of fitness as well,” he says.

Bari focuses mostly on “intense sensory cardio and trampoline work” which sounds more fun than the inevitable full-body-ache you’re bound to wake up with. But, says Carrie Dorr, founder and CEO of Pure Barre, this fitness craze isn’t necessarily a workout revolution. “People have been working out this way for decades,” she says, “but I do think that many women are discovering the results ballet produces, which makes it more mainstream than it used to be.”

But what makes this more than just another fitness craze? Women have been flocking to Physique 57 for quite some time, challenged by the method coined by Tanya Becker and Jennifer Vaughan Maanavi for their own spin on the ballet barre. But their real trick? Mixing it up every time, so your body is always doing something new.

Perhaps that’s ballet’s real allure: something new in cities full of cycling. —Phillip Picardi (@pfpicardi)