Développé - The presentation of "Le Foot"

THE TECHNICAL STUFF

Développé [dayv-law-PAY] is the shortened version of the longer official term "temps développé", meaning "time developed". The movement starts from one of the five positions and the working leg draws up the standing leg, passing through either conditional cou-de-pied or sur le cou-de-pied, then through retiré (passé-ing through retiré, in fact), and finishing in an extended expression of the straight leg and pointed foot to the front, back, side, or corner. The working leg then usually lowers back to the ground, passes through tendu, and finishes in one of the five positions. Often, though, once the working leg is développé-ed, other fun things can happen in the air!


WHY WE DO IT
Développé is the "strength builder" of the ballet vocabulary. Depending on the dancer's flexibility, développé can be extremely difficult to hold for long (or even sometimes short) periods of time. But, like most things that are not easily attained, développé is both beautiful and is seen by most to be one of the most graceful and impressive steps in ballet. It's also a really fun party trick.


HOW TO DO IT BETTER

• When performing a développé, it's generally helpful to think of the KNEE leading the charge toward a lengthened leg. If you can get your knee up super high, the lower half of your leg should follow! If not, then your hamstrings are too tight to permit the lengthening of your leg OR you lack the strength to hold your leg as high as it can stretch. If you can hold your leg higher with your hand than without, it's a strength thing. KEEP WORKING!!

• Many dancers "crunch" forward when performing développé deviant (to the front). While it may gain you a few extra inches on the height of your leg, it's probably going not-so-great things to your standing leg. If you're any kind of turned out, this contraction of the core either wrenches your knee to a place that is not over your toe (and, thus, isn't safe) OR it's making your standing knee bend which basically renders your slightly higher leg null and void.

• KEEP SMILING! This sounds silly, but many dancers look like they'd rather be doing ANYTHING else other than développé when they're doing it. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it's hard. But so is pretty much everything else in ballet, so grin, bear it, and turn out!

Photo Credit: John Manning

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