The Power and Joy of Dance: How Freedom and Technique Created Disco Barre

There’s something about dancing that nothing else touches. When I created Disco Barre, it wasn’t just about fitness - it was about reclaiming a feeling. That euphoria you get when the music hits and you’re fully in your body.

Dance Was Always in Me

My Mum used to take me to watch the local ballet class before I was old enough to join. I was so completely mesmerised that the teacher saw how much I loved it and let me start a little early.

Some of my earliest memories are spinning around in circles in my living room, completely in my own world playing Swan Lake and The Nutcracker Suite on the record player. I used to exhaust myself and then lie down and look up at the ceiling, imagining the world was upside down.

Later, I studied dance at college and was lucky enough to be taught by Henrietta Bannerman, who trained under the incredible Merce Cunningham. I loved the discipline and also freedom of those classes. The grounded floor work, the repetition, the way the body learnt through the rhythm of the body. It really stuck with me and became the foundation for how and what I teach now.

But I’m Not a ‘Dancer’

I love to dance, always have, but I’m not a ‘dancer’. Dancers are something else entirely. Athletes and artists and beyond disciplined beings whose bodies are their instruments. I’m not that. But like Lotte Berk, a contemporary dancer who wanted women to feel what it was like to move with that kind of freedom, I want you to feel the joy of dance. The rush of pleasure when music meets movement.

Disco Barre: The Dancier Side of Barre

On the technique side, Disco Barre draws on the precision and repetition of The Lotte Berk Method, which was developed to give women the strength, grace and alignment of a dancers body. I chose the elements that build deep muscular endurance, improve posture and facilitate an understanding of body mechanics.

And the structure really matters. But what keeps you coming back is that addictive burn that you struggle to find at other classes, because yes, it’s rooted in dance, but we train HARD.

Transporting You to the Club or Field

The best kind of dancing ? For me, it’s always about day 3 of a festival, when the thinking mind has quietened and you’re floating in a dream like state of bliss. You are fully riding the sound waves. That’s where I feel most myself. Jane Fitz’s Houghton sets never disappoint. Hypnotic, grounding and otherworldly - High Priestess shiz.

Or in the club at a Raresh all night DJ set with his high energy, genre bending, roller coaster ride that keeps the crowd charged from start to finish.

Or being at that naughty afters that hits that wild, raw electricity that feels special - like you’re part of a secret moment so rare and unexplainable, you know you’re lucky to be there.

It’s those magic moments I remember why I dance and why I built Disco Barre.

It’s the duality between a real technique and hedonistic freedom.

Not everyone connects to gyms and reps.

Dance on Screen: Early Inspirations

That iconic club scene in Madonna’s “Get Into the Groove” - the outfit! the attitude! - has lived rent-free in my head ever since. It’s totally inspired the feel of my warm-up: that 80s synth-laced pulse, the bounce, the joy.

Films like A Chorus Line had that raw “I need this” energy that stays with you. Dancers sweating it out under harsh lighting, auditioning with their whole being. It was gritty, emotional and electric. Even unexpected scenes, like the ballet class in Carlito’s Way (we’ll ignore that Al Pacino is stalking her), showed the discipline and grace of movement in contrast to the rainy New York night. That scene deeply moved me and I feel it in our studio. Our own little urban sanctuary.

I think dance scenes like these imprint on us. They stir a memory and a longing.

Ecstatic Dance at Akasa

Last week I danced into ecstasy at a gorgeous event space near the studio called Akasa run now by the amazing Olivia.

I have been to a few other bigger ecstatic dance events before and struggled with the music. A track would build you to a frenzy only to be followed by something generic that would break the flow. I understand it’s a journey, not a club set, but for me the sonic landscape really matters. But this DJ - Queen of Hearts - was amazing. Her set had a raw underground London edge with Afro beats, Middle Eastern textures and big dubby grooves. It was a yes from me.

I am trying to gain more confidence dancing sober. And in public this becomes not just movement, but medicine.

At the beginning you feel painfully awkward and you are trapped in your own mind. Can I even dance? Why do they look so free? Am I just moving like I’m in da club? Is there a difference? It’s a tug of war between wanting to let go and wanting to stay hidden behind the speaker.

Then you roll around on the floor for a bit, letting the carpet press into all the right bits, almost hitting that full body O, jump up again with new life force, massaging yourself with movement.

You move through negative blocks and leave more alive. It really is ecstatic.

“If you can walk, you can dance” - Zimbabwean proverb.

However, Disco Barre IS a Fitness Class

Just to be clear, you don’t need to have ever danced to enjoy Disco Barre. It isn’t a dance class, but a fitness class where you work very hard with heavyweights , ankle weights AND wrist weights (which has been a game changer). But it is rooted in rhythm and designed to make you feel strong, present and alive in your body. The choreography is simple and you don’t need much coordination, just a willingness to move and have fun.

Disco Barre isn’t about being a dancer, it’s about remembering that you already are one.