Dégagé - Dynamic disengagement

Dégagé [dā-ˌgä-ˈzhā] means to "disengage" (like we do with negative people, right?). It is also sometimes referred to as "pas dégagé" (disengaging step). Dégagé is the same general movement as tendu (see previous blog), except a few inches off the floor (thus, "disengage"). And it's generally more dynamic. Depending on the style of ballet you're doing, the full realization of dégagé is either two inches off the floor, half-way between the floor and your knee, or on the same level as your knee (don't worry - your teacher will tell you which). Dégagé can either be done with an accent in (meaning spending more time in one of the five positions) or out (spending more time with the leg out in the extension of the dégagé), though the more common accent for the step is in.

WHY WE DO IT

Dégagé is the second preparation in the traditional sequence of ballet exercises for center jumps (the first being plié). By extending a fully straight leg with an lengthened ankle and pointed foot, you prepare to shift weight from your standing leg to the extended leg. It is also part of the progression from tendu (on the floor) to grande battement (ideally, head-height - stay tuned for that one!)

Dégagé is also a great warmup for your adductor muscles (think ADD the legs together), the muscles on your inner thigh that aid in quick movement and transitions!

HOW TO DO IT BETTER

• Depending on whether the accent of your dégagé is in or out, pretend there is a large rubber band attaching your ankles together (accent in) or a very sticky wall in front of, behind, or beside you (accent out) to make your dégagés more dynamic and exciting.

• When finishing your dégagé, either in first or fifth, think of pushing away from the floor to make room for your very long leg to close back into position. Basically, growing out of the floor like a tree (that has very long, stabilizing, invisible roots!)

• Depending on your ballet class, dégagés can be very fast. The more compact your muscles and efficient your movement, the quicker you can be. For instance, hummingbirds move much more quickly than pigeons. (And they're WAY cuter). 

Relevé

[ruhl-VAY] - “raised” -  refers to the rising movement of the body that starts with the foot completely engaged with the floor and finishes in demi-pointe, or the position of the foot where only the metatarsals are touching the floor (heel and arch are raised). Relevé begins with a demi plié and finishes on a straight leg (unbent knee).

BONUS GEEKY STUFF: There are two different ways to relevé: 1) With a slight spring up to demi pointe and 2) With a continuous, fluid movement from plié up to demi pointe. The French school teaches the second method of relevé and the Cecchetti and Vaganova, or Russian, folks prefer the first (although the Russian school calls the step “temps levé sur les pointes”, or “time lifted on the points”.

WHY WE DO IT

Relevé is one of the seven basic movements of ballet and is a part of numerous more common advanced ballet movements. Relevé decreases the surface area of the foot on the floor, thus making a more efficient (less oblong) balancing point on which to turn. Circular objects rotate better than oblong ones, right?

Relevé lengthens the line of the body, making the dancer appear taller and elongated. And in the great words of Cher from Clueless, “I want to be 5’10” just like Cindy Crawford”.

Relevé also strengthens the calf muscles, stretches the front of the ankle joint, and (if the dancer is correctly doing the movement finishing with a straight knee), engages the quadriceps and gluteal muscles. Basically, it’s a super great muscle toner and is easy to do practically anywhere. Relevés while brushing your teeth, anyone?

HOW TO DO IT BETTER

The tendency of most dancers when performing a relevé is to move from correct body placement into an anterior pelvic tilt, or what many teachers term “duck butt”. You can keep this from happening by actively engaging your lower abdominal muscles when rising (think of someone giving you a front-wedgie).

The more flexible the front of your ankle, the higher your relevé will be. So . . . to make your relevé better, stretch your feet. Find a friend, have a seat on the floor, and ask them to gently press down on the top of your foot while your leg is straight. (Make sure they are stretching your ANKLE toward the floor rather than just your toes).


MORE BONUS GEEKY STUFF: The Russian ballet method has another kind of relevé. In the Vaganova method, the term relevé can also refer to “battement relevé lent” or “beated slow rise” which is a slow raising of the straightened leg from tendu up to 45 or 90 degrees and then back down.

Photo credit: John Manning

Dancer: Emma Grosjean

Tendu - STRETCH it out

Tendu [tahn-DEW] officially relates to a movement that is stretched or held. In ballet, it refers to the sliding of the foot (with the knee straight) to a fully lengthened leg, stretched top of the ankle, and pointed foot. The step's official full name is BATTEMENT TENDU ("stretched beating"), but most teachers shorten it to just "tendu" (likely because it sounds significantly less violent). A tendu is generally done to the front, side, or back, but one can tendu in any direction and it is the starting and ending point for many more advanced steps. 

BONUS GEEKY STUFF: There are SO many kinds of battement tendus in the ballet vocabulary - Battement tendu jeté, Battement tendu jeté balancé, battement tendu jeté balançoire, battement tendu jeté en cloche, battement tendu jeté pointé, battement tendu pour batterie, and battement tendu relevé. Don't worry. We'll get to them all. (Though you'd think those ballet-step-naming folks would get a little more creative). 

WHY WE DO IT

Isn't it weird that when we wake up in the morning and "stretch", we actually contract our muscles rather than stretch them? And when we stand up from our desks at work and "stretch our legs", it's generally the same thing - contracting our muscles for a bit and then releasing them. (That's pretty much the opposite of actual stretching, people.) But, while tendu is considered the "stretching step", its main purpose is to warm up the muscles in the thigh and calf (and standing gluteus maximus if you're doing it correctly) through contracting (or engaging) them. 

Tendu is also part of many other, more fancy-pants ballet steps as well. For instance, you tendu on the way to and from a grand battement. 

***Note: If you want to become more proficient at your approach to a ballet step, consider what smaller steps it's made of!

HOW TO DO IT BETTER

• Most teachers, when correcting a lackadaisical tendu, will use the term "pull up".  The better option is to "press away" from the floor. By pressing your full weight into the floor, your upper body automatically gets longer, and you perform the stretch more effortlessly.

• Make sure, when you tendu, that your hips stay stable (and don't stretch outward along with your leg). Imagine that your hip bones (formed by your ilium, ischium, and pubis bones - if you want to get all technical), are the headlights of a car. No matter where the car turns, the headlights stay stable and shine directly forward and parallel to the ground (unless you need some serious auto repairs).

• Tendu to the side, unless you have perfect 180 degree turnout (meaning your toes, feet, and knees EASILY make a straight line from side to side in first position), should be slightly in front of your body. Your tendu to the side should more or less follow the line of your natural turnout which, for most people, will put it just in front of your shoulder. If you tendu too far toward the rear of your body, the working hip will begin to rotate toward the center of your body and you lose the alignment of your hips as well as some turnout. Also, it just looks weird.

Photo credit: John Manning

Dancers (L-R): Sydney McPherson, Giana Forgione, Hannah Russell

Plié - The Trampoline Step

Plié [plee-AY] is French for "creased", in ballet, the "creasing" or bending of one's knee or knees in any position (and subsequentially the ankles and hips as well). 

THE TECHNICAL STUFF
There are two basic kinds of pliés - demi (half) and grande (large). Demi pliés are generally done while keeping the heels on the ground (the fancy French word for it is à terre) and grande pliés descend as low to the ground as possible while keeping proper body placement (second position grande plié is an exception - heels stay on the ground and hips go no lower than the knees). 

WHY WE DO IT

STRETCHING/STRENGTHENING - The act of plié stretches your calves and the area surrounding your Achilles' tendon while strengthening your quadriceps muscles (the muscles in the front of your upper leg) and your "glutes" (bootie muscles).
TRANSITIONS – Pliés are often a large part of transitions between more explosive ballet movements. The bent knee position helps you maneuver on the floor to adjust your weight before beginning another movement. It's your best opportunity to readjust not-so-perfect placement.

JUMPING – Pliés prepare for and absorb the shock of all jumps. Think of a trampoline - the higher you jump on the trampoline, the lower the trampoline goes when you land. Plié works the same way. The deeper your plié, the greater your high-jumping potential. 

***Test it out! Try jumping from straight legs. Note how high you jumped.  Now, try bending your knees first and then jumping. Higher, right? Now try the opposite. Try jumping and then landing WITHOUT a plié at the end. Ouch. That's precisely why pliés are important.***

HOW TO MAKE IT BETTER

* When landing from a jump into a plié, make sure to put your heels on the ground. (Otherwise your Achilles tendons will be very mad at you).

* Make sure that every time you execute a plié, you keep your knees directly over your toes - misalignment can lead to knee and hip injuries. Also, it just looks weird.

* Having trouble with balance in transitions or between turns? Consider staying in plié longer - standing on a bent knee rather than a straight one leaves more room for fixing alignment or balance that is less than perfect!

Photo credit: John Manning
Dancers (L-R): Drew Hoffman, Sydney Price, Alyse Carriere, Noemi Salazar

The Five Positions . . . but not really

The positions of the feet are the ballet equivalent of the "Do, Re, Mi" of music, the building blocks from which all other ballet movement is created. Basically, if you're dancing ballet and you're not in one of the five positions, you're moving to and/or from one of them. Or, well, you're doing it wrong. BUT, one of the five has gone the way of the flip phone and the cassette tape. Read on to find out which . . .

If you're going to be all fancy and official, they're called CINQ POSITIONS DES PIEDS and were established by the maître de ballet (not maître d') of the Académie Royale de Musique et Dance, Pierre Beauchamp, in the late 1600's. (That will impress your friends at parties . . . maybe.) Here they are:

First position (Première position)

How to do it: Heels touch each other as legs rotate outward to make the toes face opposite directions

What about it? First position is, well, the first position that a ballet dancer learns. It is the simplest of the positions of the feet to execute and is the second most common functional position, after fifth. The most common mistake in executing first position is excessive rotatation of the feet past the natural capacity of the hip socket. This can be identified by checking to see that the knees track directly over the middle toes when bent. Basically, you want to look like an extended car jack - one that's not bowed!

Second position (Seconde position)

How to do it: Heels are placed directly under the shoulders as legs rotate outward to face opposite directions. Officially, there should be about one foot (12 inches, not YOUR foot) between the heels, but most modern-day dancers widen the position to be shoulder-width. Mostly because it looks cooler.

What about it? Second position is the most difficult position from which to change direction because the weight is dispersed over a wide area. Because of this, though, second position is the most stable of the five positions. It's also pretty great for trying to look shorter than you are.

Third position (Troisième position)

How to do it: One heel is placed touching the arch of the other foot and legs are rotated outward so that toes face opposite directions

What about it? Third position is no longer a functional position in the modern ballet world. While it holds a distinction as one of the five positions in ballet, it was probably more effective in the court dancing of King Louis XIV than on the modern day stage at the Metropolitan Opera. Fifth position has taken over as the position to beat and third is waiting to be cast into oblivion once someone decides to streamline the whole process and decide that there are actually only FOUR BASIC POSITIONS OF BALLET.

Fourth position (Quatrième position)

How to do it: Feet are placed one in front of the other, with legs rotated outward so that toes face opposite directions.

What about it? Fourth position's claim to fame is the Degas sculpture Little Dancer of Fourteen Years. It is most functionally a transition position and is the most popular position from which to turn, or pirouette (well, it's the easiest, anyway). The most common mistake made when dancers execute fourth is that they allow their hips to twist toward the back leg. How to fix this? Think of your hip bones as headlights of a car and always make sure they shine in the same direction.

BONUS GEEKY STUFF: Officially, according to the Vaganova and Cecchetti folks (see later blog on who these folks were), there should be one foot (again, 12 inches) between your feet. BUT Vaganova dancers position their fourth directly across from fifth and the Cecchetti folks have two options - Quatrième position ouverte (open fourth - opposite first position) and Quatrième position croisée (crossed fourth - opposite fifth position).

Fifth position (Cinquième position)

How to do it: One heel is placed touching the toe of the other foot with legs rotated outward and toes facing opposite directions

What about it? If third position were cubic zirconium of ballet positions, fifth position is a yellow diamond. Fifth position is the position from which most exercises start and end, but it is also the most difficult of the five positions to execute. Unless you're a (really awesome) freak of nature, there will be a space between your OTHER heel and toe (which is completely still correct, just not perfect). Also, though, if you don't have Kate Moss-sized thighs, it may be difficult, when moving to and from fifth position, to fully cross your heel all the way to your other toe. All I can say to a new dancer when attempting to execute fifth position is, "good luck".

Photo credit: John Manning
Dancers:

 Top Photo (L-R): Caitlyn Faucher, Katherine Nicholson, Julia (Juju) Lotz, Emma Touhey, and Erica Cohen

Center Photo (L-R): Alyse Carriere, Sydney Price