Dance and Fitness Studio Opens on the Upper East Side

Ballet and Body, a dance and fitness studio, recently opened on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. The studio offers ballet and dance classes for kids and ballet and fitness classes for adults.

Ballet Body™ Fitness is a barre workout, set to classical music, that helps participants get a dancer’s grace and posture.

After 33 years of teaching in her studio in Great Neck, Roberta Senn decided to open Ballet and Body, a studio on the Upper East Side, to bring her expertise to New York City dancers. A ballerina herself, Senn’s studio offers a variety of dance classes and her Ballet Body™ Fitness class.

Senn teaches all levels of ballet, tap, ballroom, and street jazz, and a version of hip-hop, for children and adults. She offers mommy-and-me and pre-ballet classes for children ages 2-5. At 6 years old, dancers start with ballet, and as they progress, they have the opportunity to take classes in the other dance styles.

Senn says Ballet Body™ Fitness is what she is known for. “It is my own special creation,” she says. “It is fitness using the ballet barre.” Senn designed Ballet Body™ Fitness based on her dance classes. During each class, 25 minutes are dedicated to ballet and yoga, followed by 35 minutes of ballet barre exercises, which ballerinas use to warm up, strengthen muscles, and prepare for dancing.

She says it is very different from barre fitness classes offered at other studios, and is designed for non-dancers, men and women, who want a dancer’s body. Senn previously offered the class at her Great Neck studio and at various gyms in New York City.

Registration for the spring semester is now open.