Ballet Vocabulary

For classical dancing, a decent ballet vocabulary will make every class and every rehearsal a thousand times easier. If you've not yet had an instructor who likes to just rattle off steps and expect you to perform them, rest assured that one day you will. While many instructors demonstrate each step as they introduce a new combination, many more instructors simply say the names of the steps and indicate with their hands which foot or arm is doing a given step. If you have one of the latter instructors, your ballet vocabulary had better be up to snuff; otherwise you'll be left standing in the back wondering what a 'tendu' and a 'balancé' are.

Some ballet terms are more important than others. Learning all of the ballet vocabulary in a book such as the Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet by Gail Grant is a long project. Start with the terms below, and once you've mastered these, perhaps tackle the book.

A comprehensive ballet vocabulary includes a variety of ballet poses as well as ballet steps and positions. These are the most common poses:

This pose is done standing on one leg, either flat, on half point, or on full point. The leg that is extended to the back (always straight) is usually at a 90-degree angle to the leg of the supporting foot (parallel to the floor), although an arabesque can also be higher or lower than 90 degrees.

An attitude is not a particular way of doing something (as its name might suggest), but rather a static position that is similar to an arabesque. On one leg, the raised leg differs from the arabesque in that the knee is bent and that an attitude can be done to the side or the front, as well as the back, whereas an arabesque can only be done to the back.

This item of ballet vocabulary does have some sense to an English speaker; you 'assemble' your feet (bring them together) while you are in the air. First, brush one foot to the front, side, or back, and then jump, bringing both feet together and landing in fifth position on both feet.

A simple step found in many combinations. From the French 'to slide', one foot slides out and the other foot joins it, closing in fifth. The slide can be to the front, back, or side.

In this step, one foot passes the knee of the other leg, the standing leg. In point work, as the foot comes to the knee, the dancer often raises onto point and comes down again as the foot comes back to the floor.

The French 'to bend' refers to the knees in this term. This step can be done in any position, and to three different depths: plié, demi-plié (halfway to the floor), and grand-plié (all the way down, with heels off the floor—except in second position).

A nice visual step despite its simplicity, you step onto one foot in plié, creating an illusion that you're falling onto that foot.

The most common ballet jumps should also be a part of your basic ballet vocabulary.

Stand in fifth position, plié, and then jump straight up into the air, switching the foot that was in back on the ground into the front, creating as little visual space between the two feet in the air as possible. As you land, plié again to absorb the shock of the jump. Your feet should be in fifth position, with the opposite foot in front.

This jump is an extension of the changement, and a number always follows the name of the jump; the number tells you how many times the feet have to swap positions in the air before landing on the ground again. In an entrechat-quatre (most common), essentially two changements are done in the air so that you end up in fifth with the same foot in front as you originally had. It probably goes without saying that the jump must be higher than a changement in order to complete the jump before you land.

This is perhaps the best-known ballet jump, where the dancer seems to do a split in midair moving forwards. Again, the dancer needs some height in order to have the time to achieve a split before landing again.

In order to learn these steps and positions, you can watch the demonstrations of these, and more, ballet vocabulary items through American Ballet Theatre's ballet dictionary.

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