Ballet positions are essential to learning this gracious form of dancing.
When I was a little girl, eight years old I finally was allowed to take ballet lessons. In the beginning it was all very playful and lots of fun. As I got a bit older the ballet lessons became more serious and we had to be more and more disciplined, and of course we needed to know the positions.
By the way, did you know that a French ballet teacher, Pierre Beauchamps, was the one who created the five basic ballet positions in the 1600’s. Those positions help the dancers to balance, but looking graceful at the same time.
Anyway, when things became more serious, what I struggled the most with was remembering the ballet terms, because are in French.
If you want your daughter or son to learn ballet, it might help to familiarize yourself with some of the most common positions. To give you a bit of a head start I am going to explain some of those positions.
First position legs, keeping the heels together and toes pointing outwards.
First position arms, having the arms curved in front of the lower pelvis with hands close together. The palms point upwards, fingers are slightly curved and elbows a little bit bent.
Second position legs, keeping your feet hip width apart and toes pointing outward.
The arms, keeping in curved position, but the hands are a little bit further apart and are in front of the top of the thighs.
Third position, right foot stays with toes pointing outward, but the left foot comes forward with the heel being lined up to the right toe, with a gap between the two.
The left arm points out from the shoulder and the right arm is slightly curved above your head.
The fourth position, the heal is up against the middle of the food
The right arm is in the same position as in third position and the left arm forms a half circle in front of chest.
The fifth position is toe to heel and should look like a seven either the proper way or backwards. That would depend on what foot is leading.
The left and right arm are positioned above the head slightly curved and elbows lightly bent.
Those are the basic five positions and all movements are created out of those positions.
Let’s move on to some of those movements.
Arabesque, the body is supported on one leg while the other leg is stretched behind the body and extended in a straight line.
Croisse, the dancer is standing with the legs crossed with an angle to the spectators and the leg that is not engaged may be crossed in the front or the back.
Demi Plie, is standing with the feet hip width apart and hold on to a chair or a bar. The back needs to be kept straight and the pelvis needs to be tucked under the body. Now you slowly lower the body with feet flat on the ground and then slowly stand back up again.
Demi pointe means half point and here the dancer is standing high on the ball of the feet.
Grande Jete is a big jump from one foot to the other, where the working leg brushes into the air, which looks as it has been thrown..
Grande Plie again hold onto chair or bar, straight back and pelvis tucked in. Lower yourself slowly. While you do that go on your toes and go down as far as you possibly can then slowly rise up again. The back needs to be straight at all times during this movement.
Pirouette means whirl and the dancer turns on one foot on the demi pointe on one spot, while the other leg can be in a range of different positions.
Releve means raised, the body is raised onto the ball of the foot, this can be done in a variety of positions.
Now you have a small selection of terms and you can imagine how confusing it was as a young girl. Incidentally, I never became a ballerina but I thoroughly enjoyed ballet dancing.
If you would like to get some more information on ballet positions go to:
http://balletpositions.wordpress.com/
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