Barbara Bleisch lives in St. Louis, Missouri. She began folk dancing at the age of 11 with the St. Louis International Folk Dance Association. Through high school, she folk danced three nights a week and danced with the IFDA performing troupe. Of course, this made her one of the really cool kids (though no one realized it until many years later). She spent a few years away, finishing her education and starting a family and a career, but she found her way back to St. Louis and to her IFDA family.

Barbara enjoys almost any kind of dancing. She has discovered that dancing is key to her physical and emotional health. She has attended many Balkan and Israeli folk dance workshops and camps, and has taken classes (with varying levels of success) in ballet, ballroom, belly dancing, country line dance, hip hop, jazz, modern, salsa, swing, and tap.

Regardless of the type of dance, she tries to pay close attention to the appropriate styling. She's learned that in folk dancing, the styling can be more important than the steps in creating the character of the dance.