Who created barre?

The barre exercise was created by Lotte Berk, a German modern dancer who injured her back while performing in the 1950s. With the help of her physical therapists and her knowledge of movement through dance, she created and started teaching an exercise technique called Rehabilitative Exercise on Manchester Street in London. 

In the 1970s a woman named Lydia Bach opened a studio in NYC called The Lotte Berk Method. She did this to honor Lotte Berk, of whom she studied under throughout the 1960s with in London. Bach’s studio won a “Best-of Award” in New York Magazine and proceeding that she was flooded with calls from people wanting to take her barre classes.

The Lotte Berk method was not gaining popularity because it was a new fitness fad- it was therapeutic as well, especially for the back and abdominals. Lydia worked with the doctors of the rehabilitative departments in what is now Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and New York City hospitals, detailing how bracing and stabilization of the back and abdominals (a cornerstone of barre classes) was like advanced physical therapy. As a result, they would send their post-physical therapy patients to the Lotte Berk Method Studio. *

*Barre Fitness, by Fred DeVito and Elisabeth Halfpap

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