Prairie Soul Dance Company of Niverville is encouraging residents to spend their Thursday evenings in August participating in a barre and yoga class.
“August is a great time for people to renew their fitness goals and fall back into a regular exercise routine before the change of seasons,” explain studio owners and artistic directors Danielle Auld and Melanie Ducharme.
Prairie Soul was previously known as the Sadler School of Dance, which opened in 2002. In 2016, however, they expanded to a new location at 10 Cedar Drive, allowing them to expand from one studio to three, including larger studio spaces with sprung flooring.
Although Prairie Soul has offered both barre and yoga classes for the past year, this will be the first time that they’ve offered a class combining both disciplines.
The 90-minute classes incorporate movements from barre, yoga, and pilates.
“The barre component incorporates a traditional ballet barre and combines basic ballet and pilates movements to tone and strengthen the body,” Auld and Ducharme explain. “The yoga component focuses on yoga sequences to stretch and strengthen the body while calming the mind.”
Classes will cycle between upbeat music and slow and relaxing music, with participants flowing through different movements.
The new class, which is geared toward adults and older teenagers, is open to participants of all experience levels. Beginners are welcome, note Auld and Ducharme, but people with more fitness experience will also find the classes beneficial and challenging. Regardless of experience or fitness level, all people registering for the class will require comfortable exercise clothing, a yoga mat, and a water bottle.
Niverville resident and certified yoga instructor Stefanie Baranowski will lead the class. With experience teaching yin, barre, kids yoga, and flow yoga, and with a background in psychology and the performing arts Baranowski’s approach is, in her own words, “creative and always evolving.”
Classes will run from 7:30–9:00 p.m. on Thursdays starting on August 9 and finishing on August 30, at a cost of $84, tax included.