Juliana Kay wants you to break a sweat in these Classical Music Workouts

BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE

A great piece of classical music can get under your skin. I’m not just talking about goosebumps — I’m talking about the toe-tapping, fist-pumping, head-bopping power of an orchestral work that makes you want to leap out of your seat in the concert hall, and move your body along to the music.

Of course, it’s taboo to bring your hands together between movements. As a classical music listener, you must respect the traditions that usually require you to sit down, be still, and try not to cough or sneeze (or audibly breathe).

Then there’s Classical Music Workouts — the complete antithesis of the concert hall experience. You’ll hear all the same works, from Mozart to Kats-Chernin, Copland to Hildegard von Bingen. But in this space, you’re encouraged to move your body along with every phrase, jumping up and down to every fortissimo note, or letting gentle passages flow through your outstretched arms and legs.

Juliana Kay is a conductor, educator, and composer who launched Classical Music Workouts simply because she wanted to jump around to the music she loves. In this interview, she tells CutCommon how regular workout sessions just weren’t doing it for her — so she filled the gap, choreographing sessions that classical music lovers can enjoy getting physical with.

Juliana, you’re a composer and conductor, so I’m wondering — how did you get into Classical Music Workouts?

In short: I wanted it to exist, and it didn’t!

The longer answer is two-fold. Firstly, I have been into guided video workouts for several years, but I really got into them over the Melbourne lockdowns. I often found myself muting the sound on the more generic sessions, and playing classical music, so that I could feel more artistic and less mechanical while I was moving. I loved the dance workouts I could find online, but wanted more variation in music and structure and movement type to keep me interested. So I started experimenting with my own sequences to upbeat classical music.

Taking it from my living room public was more of a mission to make classical music exciting and relevant for non-musicians. For most of human history, dance and music have been inextricably linked. Sitting down quietly and listening to music is a new phenomenon, which separates the music listener from the music maker. With Classical Music Workouts, I wanted to see what a more participatory approach to classical music could look like.

When you reached out to CutCommon, you described the workouts as “Zumba, but with classical music”. Of course, classical music carries with it a totally different feel or level of energy, depending on the piece! Talk us through the way you choose the music to get attendees on their feet.

That’s the hardest part! To get the heart pumping and inspire an interesting movement sequence, there are a lot of specific requirements. At the individual piece level, the most important thing is structure. Zumba works so well because you dance to the structure of the music. The chorus has one set of movements, the verses are similar, and there is a fun bit in the middle when the bridge comes in. Similarly, the best classical pieces for choreographed workouts are ones with sections that repeat, so participants get multiple chances to get the movements right, and feel how the music is constructed. Overtures, ballets and program music, particularly from the Romantic period tend to be great for this.

Across the whole 45-minute workout, I look for fast pieces for energetic cardio sequences, slower pieces for core workouts, quirky repetitive music for arm exercises, and anything else that will inspire a variety of movement.

What else goes into the programming?

People like moving to familiar pieces, which in turn are famous because they are so catchy and danceable! Crowd favourites include Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers, Mozart’s Overture from the Marriage of Figaro and Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets. But I also try to balance that with contemporary music, Australian music, and music by women, to offer a more diverse program.

We have a couple of pieces by Elena Kats-Chernin in the mix, and always finish with a refreshing hit of Hildegard von Bingen plainchant at the end.

How do you feel that having a musical background gives you the best tools or approach to structuring a full-body workout?

I’m a conductor, so I approach a workout session like a concert program, programmatically and physically. In programming the workout, I take time to place pieces together in sequences that offer a lot of variety but still flow together without too many jarring changes. In choreographing, just as if I were studying a piece of music, I draw a map of the structure, then isolate sections to experiment with.

My collaborator Marjorie and I move around to the different sections of music a few times until we agree on what the music is asking for. Sometimes we assign movements using the Laban Efforts, a framework for describing movement, which I learned in conductor training, and Marjorie learned in actor training.

Sometimes we prioritise targeting a specific muscle group, and sometimes we take a lighter, playful approach. Unlike typical fitness instructors perhaps, we put music at the centre of what we do and make sure that our movements let the music speak.

Who do you hope to attract to these sessions? Are you trying to welcome new audiences into classical music, or attract musicians so they can work out to something that moves them — literally?

Our hope is to attract people who are vaguely interested in classical music but are not interested in spending $100 to sit for 90 minutes in a concert hall, far away from the source of the music. People who think that they should like classical music, but don’t know how to engage with it. People who also happen to like group exercise. It’s a niche crowd, yes, but an enthusiastic one!

At the moment, a lot of our participants, like myself, come from the singing/choral world, so have a lot of musical instincts but not much embodied exposure to orchestral music. By jumping, sashaying, planking and crunching our way through classical hits, we are getting inside orchestral music without all the financial, experience, and time barriers that playing in an orchestra presents.

What level of fitness is required to commence a Classical Music Workout, and how do you ensure your routines are healthy — pushing just enough, but not too far into exhaustion throughout the duration of the piece?

As with any dance workout, participants can decide how hard to push themselves. We don’t demand certain numbers of repetitions, and we let everyone bring their own level of intensity to the movements. One of us always models a low-impact version for moves that may be tough on joints or harder to achieve for those who don’t exercise often, and we have a break every few pieces to catch our breath.

The aim is to feel like you’ve had a good workout, without pushing anything beyond a healthy limit.

How would you describe the atmosphere at one of your workouts?

It’s friendly and relaxed. Marj and I are constantly aware that we’re just a couple of musicians pretending to be fitness instructors, and don’t take ourselves too seriously! We lead expressively and musically but aren’t afraid to have a laugh when we stumble over our own choreography. Our participants pick up on this, and as a result feel comfortable being in the space with their various levels of fitness and coordination.

What advice would you give to people who want to try it from home before braving their workout in public?

Attend one of our workouts on Zoom! We added an online option after a few of our interstate friends asked if they could join in. Camera on or off, we don’t mind.

At the end of the day, how does a session make you feel by the end?

Energised! It’s very similar to that post-concert high that you have as a performer, after you’ve pulled off something very public, a bit nerve-wracking, and artistically enriching. Except it’s 11 in the morning and you’re covered in sweat.