I first found out Alyssa Gregory had a ballet background through The Process Podcast. I knew she taught dance, but I had no idea she also had a love-hate relationship with ballet. From that moment, she was on my list. In 2024, she led Just the Barre for Ballet Unboxed: 75 minutes of barre work for dancers with a strong ballet background, set to a playlist with zero classical music (yes, rond de jambes to TLC's Waterfalls).
What I remember most from that first iteration wasn't the barre work. Honestly, I could have cared less if we were doing a ballet barre or not. It was the energy in the room. The joy, and also the realness of this sucks. All of us were laughing mid-combination—something that wasn’t encouraged growing up.
I sat down with Alyssa to reflect on 2024, the studio culture we both came out of, the teachers who shaped her, and what she's bringing back this November.
An Idea Put in Motion
When I reached out in 2024, Alyssa wasn't teaching dance full-time, but she had been carrying around the idea for this class for a while.
I had been having this idea of teaching this type of class for the Chicago dance community. It was nice to have the opportunity to put an idea that I had in my head in motion and just try it out in a really safe way.
The concept was simple: be at the barre. Not the barre class you see at fitness studios—a ballet barre class that feels low-stakes, good energy, and restorative for people who have danced before.
I wanted it to be really healing and I wanted it to be familiar but still challenging in these ways of kind of disrupting what a lot of us in our age grew up with.
For Alyssa, that meant reckoning with where she came from: a studio that gave her lifelong friendships (and some shared trauma), a college dance major, a professional career, and teaching full-time. Building Just the Barre became a way to figure out her own teaching identity and what HER class could look like.
When you teach in a studio you are teaching your class but you're also within the constraints of the actual studio, so to be able to teach my own class how I wanted top to bottom was really exciting.
"This Is Not a Social Hour"
Alyssa's childhood ballet teacher had a famous saying: this is not a social hour. Alyssa understood what she meant, but the delivery wasn’t it.
I think what she was trying to say was, I need you to focus and be present. But saying, this is not a social hour, is just so different to teenagers.
When she started teaching her own students, she found a different way to say it:
I'm so glad we're in a good mood. Love it. I need you to focus. I need you to be present. We got to work. We can have fun, but I need you to work right now.
For both of us, it comes down to respect—for the space, the learning environment, and the students themselves. Alyssa remembered feeling like some of her teachers saw her and her friends as beautiful dancers who didn't know how to behave.
We were really smart and we could hold two things. Two things can be true. We don't have to just have the hard in the classroom. You can also have the joy in the classroom and that makes it better.
Growing up, ballet was the class Alyssa had to get through. Every day, 4 to 6 pm, she'd tell herself: I just gotta get through ballet so I can get to Jazz class. She even preferred conditioning—a physically harder class. Still, she knows many of us carry real love for the form.
We really all do have some love for the art form itself and respect for the art form itself. And we want to break down our mental, emotional, physical trauma from ballet and actually enjoy it.
Laughing Mid-Combination
I told Alyssa her class turned ballet into something that felt like a social dance. That was exactly the point.
I wanted people to meet new people. I wanted people to feel challenged. I wanted people to be able to laugh in the middle of a combo.
There was also a lesson in who was in the room. At one point she gave a grande battement combination she'd give her high schoolers—eight encroix, six encroix, four, two, one, one, one... Everyone looked at her like she was kidding.
That was a key for me to be like, oh, these aren't teenagers.
We both laughed, reminiscing about it. That combination is NOT making a reappearance.
One of the most special moments of 2024: her former students—now in their twenties, no longer dancing—actually showed up.
I had to have a moment where I was like, damn, you guys showed up.
That says everything to me. At this point in my life, I take a ballet class because I like the teacher. I can give myself a class in my kitchen. People came for Alyssa.
Shedding the Studio Habits
Teaching former professionals meant setting aside the goals that shape most studio classes: higher extensions, squarer hips, accessing deeper external rotation.
I'm not teaching a class to build you up to give you tips and strength to get your leg higher or figure out how to square your hips better or figure out your rotation. This is a class to refamiliarize your body and move your body in a familiar way that you have tucked in the way backs of your memory and body memory.
In 2024, her focus was stepping away from technique training. In 2026, she's messing with the structure of class itself.
Why can't pliés and tendus be together? Who says they can't? Dégagés and rond de jambes. We could do frappés and jumps.You're still getting all your work in, you're still getting your sweat on, but you're also being really mentally challenged in a very different, brand new way.
This excites me a lot. When I returned to ballet as an adult, I would revert to how class felt when I was younger—an autopilot that was actually dangerous for my body. Alyssa has seen it too.
The muscle memory, it is really easy, especially in ballet, to just go into autopilot.
Ballet trained many of us to make it look effortless. Alyssa wants the opposite.
I actually want people to see the work. I actually really want you to understand and know that I'm working very hard. I'm using the teeniest little muscles that you don't even think about. I always want my class to feel like work, but good work that makes you feel good.
Your Body, Your Hour
In Alyssa's class, you can opt out. Sit on the floor and stretch. Tap in for pliés and skip ahead.
It's your hour and 15 minutes.
This time around, she wants to start class by checking in on how people's bodies are actually feeling that day—stiffness, injuries, energy—and adapt her loose plan to the room.
If someone's coming in and they're like, I'm feeling really stiff in my feet, and someone else is like, I'm feeling really stiff in my shoulders, I'm like, oh, there's a lot of stiffness today. I'm gonna go to the plan of making things feel really gooey.
Just the Barre isn't a beginner class, and Alyssa isn't there to correct. Unless something looks dangerous, she trusts the people in the room.
There's this unspoken trust where I'm like, you already have the knowledge. You're just returning to this knowledge.
We talked about success, and how skewed that idea is for so many of us who grew up in ballet. For me, success is about awareness—are you present with what you're feeling, or ignoring the pain in your neck to go hard anyway?
I like the idea of feeling success in your body, however that feels for you. And some people, success is just being like, I made it. I made it to class. Decide how you want to define success for yourself today.
And with that comes letting go of comparison—something Alyssa admits she was guilty of growing up, measuring her rotation and extension against the dancers around her without acknowledging how different their bodies were.
Our bodies are so different, so obviously they can do things that I can't do and I can do things that they can't do.
The Teachers Who Shaped Her
Preparing for this conversation, Alyssa found herself thinking about her teacher influences. She realized she has picked up little things from almost every teacher she's had.
Her childhood ballet teacher (yes, the "not a social hour" one) had an incredible way of explaining technique to teenagers, and a love for dance that was contagious.
You're so passionate about this. How can we not be passionate about this? How can we not care?
In undergrad, Scott Putman's ballet class was one of the hardest she took. His physical corrections were astounding—a touch at the ribcage and suddenly a leg would fall into place.
I've never thought about my rib cage more in my entire life. He was the one that really got me thinking about the puzzle of the body and how to make your body work for you within your own limitations of yourself. And those limitations are not a bad thing.
He was also one of the first to give tricky mental combinations.
I was just thinking and there was no way to go on autopilot.
Her biggest influence was Ms. Danielle, her lyrical, jazz, and tap teacher, who taught her the balance of fun and work.
She was so much fun that you kind of also didn't realize how hard you were working. She knew us and we trusted her. That's the big part.
That trust made space for harder, more open conversations—something Alyssa has always wanted with her own students. Many of us grew up being told to leave everything at the door. Alyssa sees it differently: a test at school, a fight with your mom—whatever is happening outside the studio comes in with you.
You are a person and you have feelings, you have things that are going on outside of these walls that are going to affect you. Ms. Danielle would talk to me differently than she would talk to Renee, different than she would talk to Nicole. And she took time to cultivate those relationships. It made us feel really seen in her studio.
Welcome Back
Alyssa has new ideas, new approaches, and the same commitment to work and play. I asked how she'd invite people to class:
Welcome back to those that are coming back. I have new ideas, new approaches. I have been thinking about new things and it's still going to be work, but it's still going to be fun. Welcome to the new folks that are going to come and try something very new. We're going to have fun. We're going to sweat. You're going to get a couple of brain teasers in there. But I think most of all, come to my class just to heal.
Join Alyssa for Just the Barre
Just the Barre returns for Ballet Unboxed 2026. Designed for experienced dancers and movers, it's a space to heal, unpack, and rebuild our relationship with ballet technique—no chasing high extensions, plenty of sweat, and zero classical music. (This year, we're doing rond de jambes to Bad Bunny.)
- Sunday, November 8, 1:00 to 2:15pm
- Sunday, November 15, 11:00am to 12:15pm
- Sunday, November 22, 1:00 to 2:15pm
All classes are at The Rooted Space (STUDIO: The Nest), 4432 N Ravenswood Ave. Classes are free and open to the public; registration is required.
See you at the barre!