Contrary to popular belief, the exercise modality that we now call barre, is not a fusion hybrid of ballet, Pilates, yoga, and calisthenics.  It was created by a veritable genius, Lotte Berk.   

Lieselotte “Lotte” Heymansohn was born on January 17, 1913, in Cologne, Germany to a Jewish family.  She was a modern dancer in Germany, and married fellow dancer, Ernst Berk, in 1933.  In 1934, their daughter Esther entered the world, and in 1938, the family left Nazi Germany for England, which they were able to do as Ernst had a British passport.

Lotte continued to dance, and in 1959, she started teaching a fitness class in a basement studio on Manchester Street.  She had suffered a back injury and worked with an orthopedist, incorporating exercises she used with him in her Rehabilitative Exercise classes.

While Lotte’s personal life was purportedly as salacious as any Bravo TV reality show, none of us are truly privy to it, and it really has no bearing on the trajectory that her exercise method and classes took. It has been recorded that the classes were packed full of celebrities, from Joan Collins to Barbra Streisand.  Britt Ekland was another such celebrity, and she apparently introduced Lotte’s classes to an American named Susan.  Susan was traveling the world and brought fellow American wayfarer Barbara to class with her.  They both were enthralled with Lotte and with her exercises.

In 1971, Susan, now using the name Lydia Bach, brought Lotte’s class to NYC and opened the Lotte Berk Method® studio, where Barbara (now known as Callan Pinckney) briefly worked. Lotte had sold the rights to use her name for $7,000 a year- a legal decision that she likely regretted down the line, and one that has helped to set a certain tone that has carried on to today.  Current trademarks which include Lotte Berk’s name in them may not reflect a personal relationship of the trademark owner with Lotte nor provenance to earlier trademarks.

While Lydia was growing the Lotte Berk Method in NYC, Lotte continued to teach and train new teachers in London, including Ann Cheshire, Gay Christie, Ellie Mann, Lois Kingham, and her daughter Esther Fairfax. 

At the same time, Callan took what she learned from Lotte & Lydia and added in other exercise methods that she experienced in her travels to create Callanetics®.  Callanetics also took into consideration Callan’s scoliosis and the minute movements that her own body was able to achieve.

Most of this was in a time before exercise videos, and absolutely before the World Wide Web.  However, we do have some books (most out of print) to refer back to.  Lydia’s Awake, Aware, Alive (1973) includes a warm-up and other exercises that very closely resemble Lotte’s original work.  Esther came out with Help yourself to health in 1978, just before her mother’s book The Lotte Berk Method of Exercise.  Callan published her first book in 1984 (and her subsequent exercise videos are to this day top sellers).

Esther quietly taught out of her home in Hungerford, and trained a handful of people right up until a few years before her passing in 2024.  A few notable names are Americans Kelly Wackerman and Andrea Isabelle Lucas, and Sophia Ritchie from London. 

The classes across the pond in NYC (and the Hamptons) started to evolve during the 1980s when planks, pushups, and light weights were introduced.  The warm-up now had knee lifts instead of the swing & bend found in Lotte’s original work (as well as what Esther and Callan were teaching).  This modern American Lotte Berk Method was beginning to look different from Rehabilitative Exercise.  This can be seen in the four DVDs that were published in 2003 by the Lotte Berk Method®.

Lotte died that same year, and just two years later, the studios in New York carrying her name closed.

The Lotte Berk Method in NYC trained numerous instructors in its three plus decades, and some of them branched off on their own.  One thing: what do we call this methodology now that the trademarked Lotte Berk Method® is no more?  Welcome: barre.

Elisabeth Halfpapp (who may be credited with first using the term “barre”) started teaching at the Lotte Berk Method in 1980, and her husband Fred DeVito joined soon after, becoming the first male barre teacher.  They began teaching at exhale, bringing their barre teacher training program to the wellness chain.  Today, they continue to be pillars of the barre community, generously sharing their knowledge and experience in CoreBarreFit classes and whenever they are asked.

They have also trained some of today’s very best barre instructors, who have also gone on to train a next generation.  Andrea Isabelle Lucas combines what she learned from them and from Esther in her Barre & Soul trainings.

Burr Leonard actually opened Bar Method studios in 2001, prior to the Lotte Berk Method’s closure.  Her trainees have taught at the Bar Method franchise studios.  The Bar Method DVDs were also quite popular.

Another major franchise came from Lotte Berk Method teacher Carrie Rezabek Dorr: Pure Barre.  Today, there are over 620 Pure Barre locations, acquired by Xponential Fitness in 2018. 

Lotte Berk Method teacher Tanya Becker, with enthusiast and MBA Jennifer Maanavi, joined together, and in 2006 opened Physique57, just ten blocks south of the original Lotte Berk Method studio.  Physique57 has also trained numerous instructors to teach at their studios, which can be found around the NYC boroughs and the world. 

Suzanne Bowen, who appeared in the Lotte Berk Method exercise videos, went a little further south (by a few hundred miles) and created BarreAmped teacher training.  You can find BarreAmped instructors around the globe.

Cindy Sites opened GoFigure studios in Connecticut, New York, and Florida, where she has also trained numerous barre instructors. She is still teaching in Fairfield County, CT and Westchester County, NY.

We are now four and five generations removed from Lotte. This is why knowing our history is so important.  We already saw Lotte’s work start to change when it came to America.  The further we get from what she was teaching, the less authentic our classes become.

The Barre Fitness Alliance was started (in 2022) in part to keep this technique that we love so much from becoming even more diluted.  Our founders include Andrea Isabelle Lucas, Jennifer Maanavi, Jill Dailey (of The Dailey Method, who trained with Fred & Elisabeth), Betsy Royster (who trained at  Barre & Soul, The Dailey Method and is a Master Trainer for Kelly Wackerman’s theLONDONmethod), and Lara Foldvari (who trained at Barre & Soul, theLONDONmethod, Physique57, BarreAmped, The Dailey Method, & Callanetics).  Today’s BFA board includes Cindy Sites, Ellie Mann, and Andrea Lincoln (who trained with theLONDONmethod). 

We understand and appreciate that things evolve.  But we also know that it is imperative to understand the foundation that we grew from.  It’s our belief that Lotte would embrace this, and it is our hope that the barre community agrees. Let’s keep this conversation open and move forward together.