Talk:Glossary of ballet

I've seen 'turn-out' mentioned a lot, but there's no entry for it here, at least not in terms of dance. Is it synonymous with technique? Can someone who knows please explain with a new entry.

Please. I was about to ask the same question. --Hhielscher 01:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Turnout is rotation of the legs outwards from the hips. So no turnout would be both feet having the toes of a foot on the ground pointing straight forwards, 180 degrees is the right foot pointing straight to the right of the body and the left toes going left. The legs are maintained in this rotated position during all the movements in classical ballet. The rotation should all come from the hip but the feet can be forced into a more turned-out (closer to sideways) position by rotating the knees and ankles. However, this is very poor technique, known as "forcing turnout" and it causes injury to the dancer. Proper alignment from the hips is most easily identified by bending the knees. If they are directly over the toes, the turnout is all from the hips. If they are in front of the toes this means the dancer is forcing their turnout, and probably also pronating their ankles (rolling to place weight on the inside of the arch). I don't have time to write up a quality section on it but hopefully I can clear up the questions on the talk page. Source is my own experience taught by faculty of SAB and members of NYCB but probably a valid online source can also be found. puppies_fly 16:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wow, this dancer pictured here with her pointe shoes on to display the basic foot positions is rolling in on her feet terribly! I doubt this person is a dancer. It hurts me just to look at it. Can someone find some better pictures with proper demonstration of the basic foot positions. 121.1.187.9 03:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)CarlinaReply

I agree with Carlina. I posted the same thing later on this page. Personally, I don't think this person is a dancer, either. If they are, I really hope they don't seriously injure themselves. Doing things like that on flat is one thing. But en pointe can be a major recipe for ankle-snapping disaster.

I will have to clarify the above: "Turnout is rotation of the legs outwards from the hips." is rooted in some of the western methods of ballet, but is an incomplete statement for -all- schools of ballet. It does -not- refer to School of American Ballet, nor the Vaganova method that is very specific about this definition: Turnout begins as an external or lateral rotation of the hips, and continues through the muscles of the legs into the feet. This works as if, from the hips, the thigh is a 'spiral' outward (using both abductors and abductors), so that the knees are aligned with the feet, that are muscularly engaged into the floor. The arch is lifted and the whole of the foot is rooted into the floor, on flat; or ball of the foot or pointes is similarly engaged.

According to physics, turnout is an -active- process of the muscles when standing in a vertical* position, so that the dancer may utilize more of their strength through the whole of the musculature, to align the hip, femur, helix of the tibia and fibula in the lower leg, ankle and foot. This process also relies upon gravity to assist the formation of external rotation from the hips. In the more specially oriented Vagnaova approach, (versus somatically oriented Cecchetti, RAD and other British systems), if most dancers only rotates from the hips, they cannot achieve the full visual effect that turnout provides. Ergo, rotation occurs as a full lower body process, not only the hips. Therefore, if I were to qualify the above for these schools, I'd have to edit it to say, "Turnout originates in the natural rotation from the hips, and continues through the muscles of the legs into the floor."

The statement by Carolina referencing "forcing" simply does not fairly, nor accurately describe this applied kinetic approach to lateral rotation, we call "turnout" in Vaganvoa, Cubano/Latina and Asian Vaganova, Balanchine, French and Bournonville schools. For these schools, it -is- a more athletic approach. But, because turnout can only occur with the engaged use of musculature, it is a more advanced method of training. The result of this is, since perestroika, it becoming more commonly taught. True: there are -many- teachers who simply do not know how to teach this properly. Indeed, there are many teachers who simply don't know how to teach ballet or any subject properly. This verifies the fact that instructors absolutely must have both of the following qualifications combined: 1) an adequate careers as full time professional dancers and 2) pedagogy, preferably a college degree from instructors who also have college degrees and years of experience teaching -regardless of which method of classical ballet they have experience and training in.- If one is only academically trained, they will be like an observer telling a medical student how to perfrom surgery. If they have only professional experience, they may only know how to relay their experiences, but not the ability to know curriculum.

In short: Carolina's statement refers mostly to the British, Cecchetti, Legat/Imperial schools and some American mixes of these systems. It does not refer to the rest other four or five schools of classical ballet.

• Turnout can only be a passive position if the body is at rest in a dorsal or ventral prone position. (lying down) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.245.229.126 (talk) 20:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

I think that the arm positions described here are not the ones used at the Bolshoi (which follows the Vaganova method). Anybody else on this? If I do not get any comments I will proceed and correct it. They seem to be the arm positions in the Cecchetti syllabus, or maybe French school. Gioland71 01:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Please consider that editing this entries costed me some time. I have some experience in ballet (mostly Vaganova method), but I decided to validate my ideas before typing and so I went through an extensive research on the following books: 'Basic principles of classical ballet' (A. Vaganova), 'Theory and practice of classical theathrical dancing - methode Cecchetti' (C. Beaumont), 'Technical manual and dictionary of classical ballet' (G. Grant), 'Danza e metodo' (M. Fusco). If you wish to make any changes, please ensure that what you learned in your classes is actually part of a published syllabus (RAD would be most welcome). Thanks. PS: none of the text I wrote is taken from these books; I used them as a reference for the correct naming of the positions described in the text. PPS: I left out a lot about the arm positions... There is the whole part on the arms in arabesque still missing...

I found the existing article very helpful when checking the spelling of ballet terms I never learned to write. This would be more helpful if it included as many terms as possible. I have only studied in a school claiming to teach "American" style - supposedly a mix of all styles - but the terms I have been looking for the spelling of:
saut de chat {pronounced "sō-də-shǎ" (a leap similar to grand jeté but beginning with a developpé)}
tembé {pronounced "tǒm-bě" meaning "to fall" (often happens before a pas de bourrèe)}
enveloppé {pronounced "on-VEL-o-pĕ"(a developpé in reverse)}
en closhe {pronounced "on-clōsh" or "on-clǒsh" (a degagé that brushes back and forth through first position)}

Being from an "American" school, will the terms I have learned for steps benefit this article?

Liquid06 03:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Correct spelling is:

Tombé (literally: fallen); En cloche (literally: as a clock).

"En cloche" means like a bell, think of your leg swinging like a bell. Lg king (talk) 03:45, 21 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

This page has been transwikied to Wiktionary. The article has content that is useful at Wiktionary. Therefore the article can be found at either here or here (logs 1 logs 2.) Note: This means that the article has been copied to the Wiktionary Transwiki namespace for evaluation and formatting. It does not mean that the article is in the Wiktionary main namespace, or that it has been removed from Wikipedia's. Furthermore, the Wiktionarians might delete the article from Wiktionary if they do not find it to be appropriate for the Wiktionary. Removing this tag will usually trigger CopyToWiktionaryBot to re-transwiki the entry. This article should have been removed from Category:Copy to Wiktionary and should not be re-added there.

--CopyToWiktionaryBot 14:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

How do we keep the traswikied page updated? It is silly to edit the same page twice... Is there anything like automatic updates?

someone put the following in the part about the five possitions:

All of these photos of the positions of the feet with pointe shoes are extreme examples of the student rolling in and not "holding her arches up" and standing with the proper weight distribution on her feet. (Let's find photos with better technique)

Now while this in un encyclopedic in its phrasing (especialy the last part) I felt maybe there could be a point of mentoning it in dicussion 71.131.42.85 09:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Can someone please change the photos for the foot positioning to properly done positions? The internet is a big place and it's easy to find correctly positioned feet and ankles for these six positions. I can even take photos of my own feet, if necessary. But the photos on here are horribly done and I don't understand why they're here without photos showing how they are supposed to be. There is no correct reference, only poorly done ones. So anyone who doesn't know about ballet feet positions is going to have no idea what is going on.

Why are the positions of the arms mentioned in the entry of the positions of the feet? I find this quite confusing - for an non-expert, it might sound like they are always used together! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gioland71 (talk • contribs) 02:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC).Reply

Note: in the example, while the dancer turns , ideally the leg should be at 90 degrees from the waist, no lower or higher

Vaganova describes the turn at 45 degrees (fouetté en tournant at 45 degrees). Gail Grant describes it at 90 degrees (fouetté rond de jambe en tournant). I cannot really say if the 45 degree one is still performed at all - and the image is too quick for me to say if there is anything wrong with it, but stating that a 45 degrees turn is never acceptable might be misleading. Gioland71 02:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

ok first: grande has an 'e'at the end so please if you spot a grande without the 'e' put it in there. and second, isnt a grande pas de chat kind of like a....something else which i cant spell for crap. it sounds like (sew te je) i'm a dancing vampirate!! (talk) 19:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

• • Maybe check your French grammar book before making changes, OK? Grand is correct for all masculine nouns - battement, jeté, pas and so on. And I believe by (sew te je) you mean a "sauté", which is a name for any generic jump (which a grand pas de chat is, BTW). Gioland71 (talk) 22:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

It is customary to italicize words from a foreign language which have not become naturalized, but in the case of ballet almost all of the French words have become native to English; this is to say, there is no other word for them in English. Might we dispense with italics? Robert Greer (talk) 14:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Many French words have a correspondent in English - such as à la seconde (to the second position), saut (jump), écarté (open) and so on... In theory one should not use the French word when there is an English one available to say the same thing but in fairness ballet terminology is (mostly) in French. Also, it would be fairly difficult to identify which ones are 'French' French words and which ones have been adsorbed into English; is 'attitude' (English) the same as attitude (French)? I do not think so.

Gioland71 (talk) 15:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

I added the italics to emphasis the term being defined. In any articles that use these terms, I also use italics.

--Mrlopez2681 (talk) 17:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Why not giving the IPA version of the names instead of the english mock-up? --Cantalamessa (talk) 22:18, 29 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Because it is too much effort? I do not personally know anything about IPA. Gioland71 (talk) 01:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

The pronunciation section (see below) probably answers your question - is it the French pronunciation we should report (IPA) or the anglicized version? My teacher in Montreal was fluent in French although with a wonderful Russian accent, but here in Toronto my teacher can't pronounce correct French at all (he's from the US), and really sounds like those mock-ups people are giving here... Just terrible for people who can speak French, but this is the English wiki, so... Any other comments on this topic? Gioland71 (talk) 13:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

I would vouch for giving the french IPA - I think we should remain true to the actual source words. It is of note that most of these words have not been absorbed into common english usage (although "pirouette", "pointe", and a few others have been), so they should therefore be treated as foreign words, and given those pronunciations first. However, as the anglicized pronunciations have become so prevalent, esp in the US, it probably wouldn't do any harm to give those prons as well - just as we do for many foreign names such as "Paris". (I'm a bit late to the discussion, but it's important.)–The Fiddly Leprechaun · Catch Me! 20:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't travel in Ballet circles, but any that does- Is the pronunciation guide for Retiré (reh teh ray), correct?

I ask because if I recall my french correctly, the ir would rhyme with pier. Certainly- practice rules, so if it has become bastardized into (reh teh ray) in the english speaking ballet world, far be it for me to intrude. Mak (talk) 17:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

My "petit robert" says it should be pronounced ʀ(ə)Tiʀe Gioland71 (talk) 13:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Right. That's how I'd pronounce it- I'm not sure the guidance the article gives is incorrect because I asked my daughter's teacher who is an accomplished ballerina and she said she had always pronounced it the way the article describes. She was aware of the other pronunciation but she recalled it used by people from Europe- everywhere from the US she hears it the way she pronounces it. Given that, I'm not doing anything to the article, since I am deferential to usage. It's a shame, because the french sounds so much better, but there you are. As for this proposal concerning IPA- it forces more fidelity, but realistically, it is not even that great for European languages. Even IPA doesn't give a unique symbol for the french gargled r. There's either the spanish trilled r, or the american r (upside down in IPA), and neither is anything close to the french r. Which is odd, because as I understand a Frenchman was one of the authors of IPA. I bow out of this matter. Regards- Mak (talk) 01:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

The IPA symbol for the french r is 'ʁ' - see WP:IPA for French. Although I too have seen the 'ʀ' used in a number of dictionaries. –The Fiddly Leprechaun · Catch Me! 20:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

I've always heard 'reh-tee-ray'. Mazz0626 (talk) 18:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Would any of you be fine if your child learnt English pronunciation from, dunno, a Russian native speaker whose second language is English? I don't think so. You have heard 'reh-tee-ray', but it is pronounced ʁ(ə)Tiʁe 128.100.227.81 (talk) 20:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

I have removed the following statement -

"A very well-known coda is from "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", from the Nutcracker suite, in which the dancer traditionally performs numerous quick pique en tournents in rapid succession around the expanse of the stage"

There are several problems with this statement. First, stating that "the dancer traditionally performs numerous quick pique en tournents in rapid succession around the expanse of the stage" is only referring to a particular version of this number. I have seen several productions of The Nutcracker where such steps are not performed during the final passage of this solo.

This number has been titled "Dance of the Sugerplum Fairy" over time, in the original program it is referred to in the proper balletic-french as Variation dansée de la fée Dragée.

All of this aside, however, the final passage of the so-called "Dance of the Sugerplum Fairy" is certainly NOT a coda as it is referred to in ballet. One should read the definition of coda.

A coda in music and a coda in ballet are two different things. Although a music score might call the final passage of the "Dance of the Sugerplum Fairy" a coda, it is certainly NOT a coda in the art of ballet.

As is stated in the definition, a coda is a piece of music which brings the suite of dances known as the Grand pas, Grand pas de deux, Grand pas d'action, etc. to a close.

--Mrlopez2681 (talk) 17:39, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

• According to the FATD syllabus battement means 'beat'

Thanks Gioland71 (talk) 00:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

I can answer my own question: The Federal Association of Teachers of Dancing is the longest established dance teacher association in the Southern Hemisphere, having been established in Sydney in 1931 under the name of "The New South Wales Dancers Society" this name was changed to the more widely embracing Federal Association of Teachers of Dancing Australia in 1936, and further amended in 1937 with the addition of the words "and New Zealand." Gioland71 (talk) 02:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

There should surely be mention of écarté/écartée in the article. I don't have the time to add it myself currently, but I thought I would bring it to everyone's attention. Signing off, –The Fiddly Leprechaun · Catch Me! 20:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

I did it, I hope it came out acceptably. Lg king (talk) 03:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

I looked up the word écarté in a French dictionary and got several meanings: discarded as in a card game, spread far apart, alone, aloof, distant. It is also the name of a popular 19th century French card game. Not sure what to do with this, any of these meanings seem like they could apply. I need a historical source. Lg king (talk) 03:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Actually according to the Petit Robert (French dictionary), the best synonym is "separé" = separated, apart. "Faire le grand ecart" means to do a split. There is nothing esoteric about the term. 173.206.231.5 (talk) 02:11, 28 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

It is

"If the front leg is the right, and the dancer is facing the front-right corner of the stage, he is in effacé; or, if the front leg is the left and she is facing the front-left corner, she is in effacé."

"The dancer is in croisé if the front leg is the right leg, and the dancer is facing the front-left corner of the stage; or if the front leg is the left, and the dancer is facing the front-right corner, then the dancer is in croisé."

but must be

"If the front leg is the right, and the dancer is facing the front-left corner of the stage, he is in effacé; or, if the front leg is the left and she is facing the front-right corner, she is in effacé."

"The dancer is in croisé if the front leg is the right leg, and the dancer is facing the front-right corner of the stage; or if the front leg is the left, and the dancer is facing the front-left corner, then the dancer is in croisé."

see images en german article.

Maksim-e (talk) 19:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

NO. The stage has two perspectives. From the dancer's perspective, if he's facing his right corner with right foot front, that's effacé. Indeed if he moves his foot in tendu front, the position is open. Of course, it is the opposite if you refer to the audience stage corners. I do not care what the German wiki says, I trust my Gail Grant's book a lot better. I suggest using the position in the studio because there is only one perspective in it.

For those of us who don't speak French or whatever, indication of pronunciation would be of great help. This glossary is not terribly complete (though pretty good). I wish this had been taken more seriously. The article has the look of being thrown together. Gingermint (talk) 00:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

The recently edited definitions of Ballerina, Danseur and Ballerino has changed the definition from a word to call a ballet dancer based on their gender to a title that only internationally famed ballet dancers acquire. I would just like to confirm, is this correct? I've always thought and told that those words are words used to call everyday ballet dancers, and the prestigious title instead would be say "Prima ballerina assoluta" or "Danseur noble" for those internationally famous. Thanks, Y.sundaravej (talk) 12:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Okay, not to be anymore annoying but, from time to time, people have added "definitions" to things that aren't ballet terms, ie, definition of Modern Dance to Famous Ballerinas. Could we please keep these to relevant terms of ballet please? Thanks Y.sundaravej (talk) 12:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

In a previous edit of the section Coda, such things as "Coda générale" or "Grand coda" were changed to "générale coda" or "Coda grande". Although the changes may be grammatically proper, it has never been done this way in ballet. As a historian, I have seen several programs, etc. from the ballets of Imperial Russia and 19th century Paris. If the term "coda" includes "générale" or "Grand" it is always presented as "Grand coda" or "Coda générale". --Mrlopez2681 (talk) 15:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

The danseur noble section is off-the-mark. The designation has as much to do— if not more — with the sort of dancer the danseur is — the sort of rôles he might dance — than his distinction within the world of dance, there being highly distinguished dancers who nonetheless would never be thought of as danseurs nobles. — Robert Greer (talk) 13:35, 17 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

? 2001:56A:F414:D300:FDD0:34D0:A51F:14E9 (talk) 23:23, 9 March 2018 (UTC)Reply