IADMS Miami 2000   [back to the Category]

The Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique®: A Method To Refine Alignment and Dance Technique   [read the french version]

Author :   Lyn Wiltshire-Beer Elam

Author: Lyn Wiltshire-Beer Elam, Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

The Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique® originally developed to help dancers refine ballet technique, provides a number of essential elements for a dancer looking to improve alignment, flexibility, strength and fluidity. These elements correct placement while executing movements without the pull of gravity or bearing the weight of the body, the ability to focus use of energy from the pelvis (finding one’s center of movement), developing correct patterns of muscle memory while building strength in these muscles; and refining the use of transitions from one movement to another.
The Floor-Barre™ strengthens the pelvis and back, develops maximum turn-out (outward rotation of the legs), and extension and strengthens the musculature and joints, particularly the ankles, knees and hips, while releasing tension through the body. Therefore, this technique provides an innovative working technique for the dancer that is unrivaled by virtue of the direct relationship to basic ballet movements.
In its basic forms and premises dance technique has changed little over time, the scope of the vocabulary, however, as well as its level of difficulty has been greatly increased. The ultimate goal is to use the body as an expressive instrument of communication. To do so, the dancer must master a movement vocabulary as precise as that of any verbal language. Alternative training methods or body therapy alternatives have been employed to better prepare the dancer and aid them in exploring new areas of growth and discovery.
What makes this technique different than most is that it combines classical ballet principles with anatomical principles of alignment and kinetic usage. The significance is a teaching method that develops a pure technique and solid placement foundation suitable for any form of dance movement. During the Floor-Barre™ the student performs basic ballet movements while lying on the floor guided by verbal instruction. Correct patterns of movement readily become a part of the student’s “muscular memory” because the student is given clear direction and ample time to carefully execute and feel the corrected movements without fighting the pull of gravity or bearing the body’s weight. The parallel position and innovative movement sequences are employed to release tension in the body, place the body in alignment, and correct the usage of the muscles. Habitual misuse patterns are thereby replaced with correct ones that are subsequently reinforced in the standing barre and center work.
Over the past 40 years the Zena Rommett Dance Institute has developed alliances between the Institute and private and public institutions, including dance companies, colleges, universities, dance schools, health and fitness clubs, athletic organizations and practitioners of physical rehabilitation services. Notable medical practitioners such as Richard Bachrach, D.O., NYC, Center for Sports and Osteopathic Medicine, John Bergfeld, M.D., Head of Orthopedics, Sports Medicine, Cleveland Clinic and William Liebler, M.D., NYC recommend this technique, and have served as medical consultants and members of the Board of Directors.
As the research in this relatively new field advances, more educational information will be available to dancers seeking ways to maintain the health of their bodies and better recover from injury. It is believed that parallel to the advancement of dance medicine will run a growing awareness among doctors of the benefits in utilizing body therapy alternatives to prevent and rehabilitate dance injuries.
Many dancers have discovered that The Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Technique® is an excellent way to assist in the rehabilitation of an injury. Muscles weaken after an injury, which causes a tendency to overcompensate for the injured part. The Floor-Barre™ helps to maintain proper alignment without having to bear weight on the injury and allows a dancer to gently isolate and strengthen specific muscle groups. Because it instills and strengthens proper alignment in a dancer The Zena Rommett Floor-Barre Techniques® is a tool for injury prevention.

This is the abstract of a paper presented at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science, held 27-29 October 2000 in Miami, Florida, USA. All rights are reserved by the individual author(s).