|
Dictionary of Ballet & Dance Terms
- Écarté
- separated, thrown wide apart
- Échappé
- escaping or slipping movement - a level opening of both
feet from a closed to an open position
- Échappé sur les pointes
- Échappé on the points or toes. Fifth position
R foot front. Demi-plié and, with a little spring,
open the feet to the second or fourth position sur les
pointes
- Effacé, effacée
- directions of épaulement in which the dancer stands
at an oblique angle to the audience so that a part of the
body is taken back and almost hidden from view
- Élévation
- the height attained in springing steps such as entrechats,
grands jetés
- Entrechat
- step of beating in which the dancer jumps into the air
and rapidly crosses the legs before and behind each other
(quarte=4 crosses, six = six crosses)
- Épaulement
- bringing one shoulder forward and the other back with
the head turned or inclined over the forward shoulder
- Exercises à la barre
- group of exercises performed by the dancer while clasping
a bar with one hand. Bar exercises, or side practice,
are the foundation of classical ballet and are to the dancer
what scales are to the pianist
- Extension
- used to describe the ability of a dancer to raise and
hold her extended leg en l'air
- Face, en
- Opposite (the audience); facing the audience
- Fish dive
- various lifts in which the danseuse is supported by the
danseur in a poisson position. He may hold her above his
head in a horizontal fish dive or she may fall from a sitting
position on his shoulder and be caught in a fish dive,
and so on.
- Fondu, fondue
- sinking down - used to describe a lowering of the body
made by bending the knee of the supporting leg
- Fouetté
- whipped - applied to a whipping movement. The movement
may be a short whipped movement of the raised foot as it
passes rapidly in front of or behind the supporting foot
or the sharp whipping around of the body from one direction
to another
- Fouetté en tourant
- large fouetté, turning
- Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant
- whipped circle of the leg turning - the dancer executes
a series of turns on the supporting leg while being propelled
by a whipping movement of the working leg
- Gateway, the
- first position, arms are held rounded in front of the
body with the fingertips on a level with the bottom of
the breastbone
- Glissade
- a traveling step executed by gliding the working foot
from the fifth position in the required direction, the
other foot closing to it
- Grand, grande
- big, large
- Jambe
- leg
- Jeté
- jump from one foot to the other in which the working
leg is brushed into the air and appears to have been thrown
- Jeté battu
- jeté beaten
- Jeté entrelacé
- jeté done in all directions and in a circle. It
is usually preceded by a chassé or a pas couru to
give impetus to the jump
- Jeté, grand
- large jeté
- Jeté, grand in attitude
- big leap forward preceded by a preliminary movement such
as a pas couru or a glissade, which gives the necessary
push-off
- Jeté, petit
- small jeté
- Labanotation
- a system of dance notation invented by the Hungarian-born
teacher Rudolf von Laban
- Leçon (Class)
- lesson - the daily class taken by dancers throughout
their career to continue learning and to maintain technical
proficiency
- Ligne
- the outline presented by a dancer while executing steps
and poses
|
