I believe that the floor can be a dance ally. In fact groundwork has consistently satisfied me during my dance training, even more than standard ballet classes, because there is no performance anxiety, but nevertheless great pleasure. I arrived to my first Floor Barre® classes in Paris, as a dance scholar and passionate researcher about the body’s working mechanisms. I was looking for the deep motivations for which exercises on the floor had always been so important to me to maintain a good physical state over time, even after that kind of events which inevitably change the body-mind system, such as pregnancy. Zena Rommett’s technique was an absolute discovery: I found in the delicacy of the Mentors’ voice tone and in their gentle indications all the most noble motivations for bringing this discipline to everyone, not just to dancers. I truly believe that Zena’s legacy can be particularly helpful for other athletes but especially for office workers, students, and anyone whose backs and necks suffer from too much time hunched over a computer. I will try to give to this diverse population a sense of lightness and consciousness of their bodies so that they can bring them back to their daily lives for a greater sense of well-being.
