Common dance terminology: "ballet French" explained

There's a popular t-shirt in the dance-o-sphere that says, "I speak ballet French." If you dance, you have to LOL at that. Ballet students, especially in the US, know that so much of our vocabulary is a fractured French. We also call things by different names depending on the method, whether it's Vaganova, Cecchetti, French, English, and so on. And to be honest, many European-trained dancers scoff at "American style" nomenclature.

(Lame duck, anyone?)

But there are certain words that we all use and that we all use incorrectly.

(Hey, no one's perfect!)

Here are a few terms and words that are often misused, mistranslated, or misstated grammatically. I want you all to be ballet French fluent in 2019!

en croix - "in the shape of a cross"; regardless of whether you do a step en avant, a la seconde, en arriere and a la seconde or just en avant, a la seconde and en arriere, you are still forming the shape of a cross on the floor or in the air with your leg, foot or arm.

Courtesy State Library of Queensland

sissonne - nope, it's not "scissors"; that would be ciseaux. Sissonne is the name of the man who invented the jump, which unfortunately also looks like a pair of scissors opening and closing.



rond de jambe - the plural of this follows the French grammar: ronds de jambe and hewing to the correct French pronunciation, you do not pronounce the "s". So basically, more than one rond de jambe also sounds like a singular rond de jambe. But no, it's not rond de jambes unless you are moving both legs simultaneously.

Courtesy State Library of Queensland

cou-de-pied - this is not coupe which is a movement ("cutting" or "cut") but the position of one foot on or at the ankle of the other (en avant  or en arriere); when it is wrapped, it's sur le cou-de-pied. It is literally translated as "neck of the foot" which we know as "ankle" or "instep." Don't neglect the "de" or else it will sound like a combination of coupe and cou-de-pied.

Got any burning French questions? Shoot 'em on over to me in an email or comment. Happy dancing into the New Year, beautiful dancers!