Ballet Barre for Tap Warmups? Let's discuss.

Many teachers briefly use the ballet barre or chairs in their Tap classes to help students work on wings, pullbacks, etc. It’s not the only way to teach those kinds of steps, but definitely a common approach. This is a quick and temporary use of the barre.  

In this article, I am more focused on the use of the ballet barre for more significant amounts of time in Tap class - for warmups, etc. 

If you use the barre in this more extended way, I want to offer this food for thought that might challenge the way you think about barre use, or it might make you feel more confident in your use of it! 

Here are several factors to consider, for Pre-K students, adults, and everyone in between. 

The Class Structure & Management Factor

Tap classes can feel especially tough to manage, especially when dealing with a class full of kids just straight-up making noise with their shoes!

And if teaching Tap isn’t the dance teacher’s strong suit, it can be easy to get on board with ANY tool or plan that gives some sense of structure and order to the class. In that sense, standing at a ballet barre for a warmup might make sense. 

Some think that standing at the barre make the dance study more "official" or more "serious"

Giving young students a specific spot to stand on - be it at a barre or near a rubber dot - can be helpful for the sake of order, but a barre warmup doesn't make Tap dance study class more serious or legitimate.

The discipline & structure of Tap dance study lies largely in keeping students mentally engaged.  

Beyond where students stand, the Tap dance educator needs to have plans, teaching & class management strategies that require students to mentally “lock in”. The teacher needs to find ways to keep the class flowing and progressing, even in a mixed-level class, so that each student is getting what they need to stay focused. 

(Want a stronger structure for your Tap classes? Click to join the waitlist for Online Tap Teacher Training!) 

 

The Culture of Tap Dance

When we imagine a group of people Tap dancing, what do we typically think of? 🤔

1. A group of people dancing in a circle
2. A group of people facing a mirror?
3. A group of people standing at a ballet barre 

I feel comfortable in saying that ‘people standing at a ballet barre’ is the LEAST popular answer of these three. 

The culture of Tap dance is communal. It is social. So if you’re spending a significant percentage of class with students staring at the back of each other’s heads, then that social element of Tap dance culture is being reduced.  

Also, we know that most of our students are NOT signing up for Tap class to become professionals. They want to get better at Tap dance sure, they sign up for a class to be with others as they learn! 

So when we consider that the barre culture/energy deprives our students of that beautiful part of Tap dance culture, I encourage teachers to think of ways that they can create a more communal or social environment in class…to circle up, face a partner, invite students into discussions about technique, history, etc. 

 

Adult Tap Class Considerations

Those who are running fabulous adult Tap programs may have students who want or need to stand at the barre. Let them...at least for awhile! ;-) 

But if you haven’t already, do consider building your students' ability to dance with confidence on the center floor by adding strengthening and stabilizing exercises to your warmup, to help your adult students learn to

✅  activate their core muscles

✅  place their body weight between their first & second toes whenever they’re on the balls of their feet (which is a lot of the time in Tap!)

✅  improve balance on one leg using the body’s biggest muscle groups (abs, glutes, quads, hamstrings)

I taught a series of “absolute beginner” adult classes on Zoom at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, and I spent the first part of every class doing this exact kind of balance/strength work. This is particularly good for elder students who need to keep their strength & balance up as they age! Most of the adults in my Zoom class gained the strength, placement & confidence they needed to dance independently of a chair or other balance support. 

Of course, we may have some students whose physical abilities mean that they can never Tap dance without balance support, and that’s totally welcome, but the majority of adult students can move away from the barre with confidence IF we give them the tools they need. 

“If it’s good enough for XYZ Tap Teacher then it’s good enough for me.”

Some will point to a legendary master teacher, or perhaps to their own Tap teacher, and follow their example when it comes to use of the barre or even a particular curriculum. 

This makes sense to a degree, but also consider that the tool’s effectiveness depends largely on the USER of the tool. 

If you hand me a hammer 🔨 and tell me that “the hammer is the best tool ever”, 🔨 I can use it to put a nail into a wall, but that’s about it. If you hand that same hammer to my dad who is a retired carpenter, he’ll use that same tool to create all kinds of master craftsman work. 

So in this case, I suggest that we ask ourselves the hard questions about our ability to use the tools. XYZ Tap Teacher might be a world-class master educator who could teach Tap at the highest level with any tool handed to them. But that doesn’t speak to the quality of the tool necessarily. 

Is XYZ Tap teacher considered a master educator because they use the ballet barre to teach Tap? Is the barre the secret to their teaching mastery? No. The master teachers have done so many different things to teach Tap effectively, and I don’t know that any of them would rank the ballet barre as a top requirement on their list of most effective tools or strategies for teaching Tap, even if they have used it. 

 

Think of it this way: 

If a Tap teacher reading this blog has classes that

• are uncomfortable with improvisation
• rush the music regularly
• struggle to dance accurately at different speeds (faster or slower), or
• struggle to execute basic rhythm patterns with accuracy,  

then there are some important strategies/tools missing from the “teacher toolbox”, and the ballet barre isn’t one of them. These things that I listed are fundamental aspects of teaching Tap dance, no matter what choreography style one prefers. They matter as much as the steps we teach. 

 

So if a teacher is struggling with these issues without strategies to handle them effectively, I can guarantee you that standing at a ballet barre won’t help. In fact, it might actually hurt. I can promise that master Tap dance educators know how to teach these fundamental aspects of Tap dance that I’ve listed, barre or no barre, regardless of the talent level of the class.

 

The master teachers proactively teach musicality, rhythm, timing, improv, history, steps, step technique, performance skills, and more. So if we’re going to try to replicate their teaching mastery, let’s examine the many aspects of how they teach, and not just one tool, right? 

(Want new, effective ways to teach musicality & other fundamentals of Tap? Click to join the waitlist for Online Tap Teacher Training!)

 

The Balance & Weight-Change Issue

I’ve already addressed the issue of adult students and balance, but let me add a bit more food for thought on the issue of BALANCE in Tap class vs Ballet class. 

Having trained my whole life in both disciplines, my primary observation is that the weight changes required in Tap dance are often rhythmically complex, faster, and more frequent across the board. 

While there are elements like petit allegro in Ballet that require fast & rhythmic footwork, standing and balancing on one foot for extended periods of time is much more common in Ballet than in Tap. Tap requires more "quick twitch" movement than slow, elongated work. Standing at the barre for half a ballet class makes sense given what’s required once you come to center floor for tendu combinations, adagio, big jumps, etc.

 

I had a ballet teacher in New York who praised my petit allegro skills and pointed to my training in Tap dance as a source of my strong skill in that particular area of class (it's the ONE area of ballet where I shined 😅)! She suggested to the rest of the class that they take Tap, where they could work on rhythm and faster weight changes, because she knew there was that difference between Ballet & Tap.

 

Weight changes & balance are fundamental to Tap dance. 

 

If a Tap teacher has their class at the barre for warmup and

❌ the students are leaning on, gripping, or relying heavily on the barre 

❌ the students also train in ballet and you're constantly fighting against their "pulled-up, straight-legged turned out" muscle memory

❌ the teacher is not proactively showing the class HOW to balance on their standing leg with relaxed knees & grounding, or

❌ the barre warmup doesn't give students the chance to practice HOW to shift their weight in the steps they're warming up,

then the barre work can be a serious hindrance to progress.

 

When it comes to Tap dance,

Balance is PART of the step. 

Weight shift/change management is PART of the step. 

 

When I notice balance struggles in my students in a given exercise, I don’t have them hold onto a barre so they can keep trying to do a progression that is just maybe too much for them at that point. I adjust - change the exercise, the tempo, etc. to set students up to execute effectively ON THE FLOOR. 

If the class is REALLY struggling with balance, I may do a quick balance exercise with the students, as I mentioned above with adult classes, but other than that, I encourage teachers to keep balance & weight shifts baked into our technique education.

Balance & weight change management are so fundamental to achieving precise rhythm patterns and maintaining tempo, that I don’t like the idea of treating them as separate lessons from the steps/warmups, as a teacher could do more easily while leading class at the ballet barre.

What About the “Pre-K” Tap Students?

When I took my kids for their 3 & 4-year-old pediatrician checkups, I noticed that our doctor asked to see them stand on one leg for 3 seconds, and then hop on one leg, on both sides. These were developmental milestones that our pediatrician wanted to see.

So in that spirit, my weekly 3-4-year-old class does their entire 45-minute Tap class center floor, no barre. I give them balance challenges they can handle successfully, in ways that improve their gross motor skills, which is an important goal for this age group.

This is another benefit of Tap dance training that we can proudly share with the parents of Pre-K students. By keeping them AWAY from the ballet barre and challenging them to improve their balance, we are helping our youngest Tap students to reach & surpass important developmental milestones! 

------------------------------

So there you go!!

Lots of food for thought about the use of the ballet barre for Tap class warmups.

Challenging perhaps, but all in the spirit of continuing to develop ourselves as Tap dance educators so that we can set our students up for the greatest possible success and enjoyment of Tap dance. ❤️

Click to join the waitlist for Online Tap Teacher Training!