Ballet Vocabulary in English — 20 Essential Terms

Ballet developed into a formal art form in the French court of King Louis XIV during the seventeenth century, and the first official school, the Académie Royale de Danse, was established in Paris in 1661. The steps and positions were codified and named in French, and these names spread across the world along with the technique. Today the French vocabulary is used in studios everywhere as a universal language — a teacher can call out plié or arabesque and dancers of any nationality will understand exactly what to do.

A plié and a relevé are opposite movements. In a plié, the dancer bends the knees while keeping the back straight and the heels ideally on the floor, lowering the body. In a relevé, the dancer rises up onto the balls of the feet, or onto the toes in pointe shoes, lifting the heels off the floor. Pliés are used to absorb landings and prepare for jumps, while relevés build the strength and balance needed to dance on the toes. The two are often combined in exercises.

Turnout is the outward rotation of the legs so that the knees and feet point away from the centre of the body. Crucially, it must come from the hip joints, not from forcing the feet outward, which can cause injury. Turnout is one of the defining features of classical ballet: it creates the long, open lines that ballet is known for and allows the dancer to move in any direction with control. Developing safe, full turnout takes years of patient training.

These terms describe the tempo and character of movement, borrowed from music. Adagio means slow and sustained: adagio exercises emphasise balance, control, and long graceful lines, with the dancer holding positions and moving smoothly between them. Allegro means fast and lively: allegro work consists of quick jumps and brisk footwork that test speed, lightness, and stamina. A full ballet class usually includes both, training the dancer in both sustained control and rapid, energetic movement.

The corps de ballet is the group of dancers who perform together as an ensemble rather than as individual soloists. In a classical production, the corps creates the visual framework of a scene — the swans in Swan Lake or the snowflakes in The Nutcracker, for example — often moving in precise unison to form patterns on stage. Dancing in the corps requires exceptional discipline and uniformity, and it is usually where young professional dancers begin their careers before being promoted to soloist roles.

A pas de deux, French for “step of two”, is a dance performed by two dancers, traditionally a man and a woman. It is often the romantic and technical highlight of a classical ballet, allowing the partners to display both lyrical expression and impressive feats such as lifts and supported turns. A classical grand pas de deux usually follows a set structure: an opening duet, individual solo variations for each dancer, and a fast, virtuosic finale called the coda.

Pointe shoes are specially constructed shoes with a hardened, flat tip that allows a dancer to stand and move on the very tips of the toes, a technique known as dancing on pointe. They are not for beginners. Dancers usually need several years of training to build the ankle and foot strength, the core control, and the correct technique required to go on pointe safely — typically not before the age of about eleven or twelve. Starting too early or without proper strength can cause serious injury.

The barre is the handrail dancers hold for support, and almost every class begins there. Barre work lets dancers warm up gradually and practise the fundamentals — pliés, tendus, and relevés — with the security of something to hold, so they can focus on alignment and technique without worrying about balance. Once the body is warm and the basics have been rehearsed, the class moves into the centre, where the same skills must be performed without support, demanding far greater control and balance.

Both are turns, but they work differently. A pirouette is a controlled rotation on one leg, with the other leg held in a fixed position; the dancer spins from a single preparation. A fouetté is a continuous turning step in which the working leg whips out and then folds back in with each rotation, generating fresh momentum so the dancer can turn many times in succession. The famous sequence of thirty-two fouettés in Swan Lake is one of the most demanding feats in classical ballet.

The most effective approach is to connect each term to the movement it describes. When you watch a class or a performance, name the steps as you see them — arabesque, grand jeté, plié. Because the words are French but used within English instruction, hearing them in a real class fixes both their meaning and their pronunciation. Practise the 20 terms with Flash Cards on LexFizz, then test yourself with the Matching Pairs exercise. Returning to the words in context helps you retain them far better than memorising a list.