Lexis Trechak’s life always revolved around dance, and she wanted to start her own platform for the dance community after noticing a lack of podcasts.
“We’re just three normal girls that had normal lives growing up and we experienced the same thing that every other normal person has gone through in the dance competition world or in the dance studio growing up,” said Trechak, a speech, language and hearing major and dance minor.
Trechak now hosts the podcast, “Barre Chat,” with influencers Bianca Scaglione and Becca Lind that currently has more than 55,000 listeners. The first episodes for season two were released on Feb. 5 on Spotify, Apple Podcast and YouTube and each new episode is released biweekly on Sundays.
The three of them prepare for each podcast recording with a bulleted list of different ideas they’d like to cover within that time. From there, they challenge each other to dig deeper into the topics they discuss and create questions on the spot.
Trechak, Scaglione and Lind have different roles in producing the podcast. Trechak and Scaglione help manage the show’s social media presence while Lind handles video editing.
The goal of the Barre Chat is to connect with the dance community and make dancers feel heard, Trechak said. However, the podcast is for everyone because it discusses topics most people can relate to, like body image issues or balancing school with dance.
Trechak’s former dance instructors, Danni Durso and Tracy McManus, have supported her with their encouraging coaching in the studio ever since she joined the Yvonne’s School of Dance in Edison, New Jersey, and saw Trechak’s dreams of being a dancer and influencer while growing up.
Growing up, Trechak manifested everything she has accomplished, McManus said.
“And then all of a sudden, here she is,” McManus said. “She couldn’t really say that she had a podcast in the very beginning. And then finally, she let the cat out of the bag and it was like, ‘Hey, I went to LA to tape a podcast.’ I’m like, ‘What? That is so cool!’”
The podcast is really impactful, and would have been useful when she was exploring her early dancing career, Durso said.
“When I was a dancer at her age, I wish that I was able to connect with people just because it’s so easy in art, in general, to be critical of yourself,” Durso said. “I think that the podcast really opens up to so many different topics so you realize you’re not alone and that we all feel this way.”
The podcast is important to Trechak because her conversations with her co-hosts flow naturally, allowing for the podcast to be an inviting and realistic environment, Trechak said.
The podcast is a very welcoming place because they provide motivation through their own stories, said Trinity Caratenuto, a childhood friend of Trechak.
“I feel like that’s really important, especially to a younger generation and I feel like hearing that allows people to just embrace themselves more and be more open with themselves and what they want and not to judge themselves,” Caratenuto said.
The process for producing Barre Chat has been smooth so far, especially for a start-up podcast, Trechak said. She is proud of all the hard work they have accomplished and has high hopes for the future.
“I hope that it really hits home with like five people,” Trechak said. “I just want people to listen to the episodes and be like, ‘Wow,’ like ‘I really needed to hear that today.’ So that’s my goal, my personal goal for the podcast,” Trechak said.
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