Ballet Terms: Literal Translations Quiz

Answer: Tense

While tendu is pointed and you brush your foot through the floor to get to tendu, the literal translation of tendu is tense. The way you should tendu devant is you should push your heel forward as you are brushing out, preventing sickling. Your foot should go as follows: heel, instep, ball, toes.

Then to brush back, it is the opposite: toes, ball, instep, heel. This is how the tendu should look, even in fast tendu combinations.

Answer: Strike

You want to flex your foot in sur le-cou-de-pied position. To frappe devant, you strike (hense the literal translation, strike) the ball of your foot to the floor and then point. You then put your foot back in sur le-cou-de-pied position with your foot flexed.

Answer: Beat

A battement is not like cheerleading where you kick your leg as high as you can. If it was, it would be called a kick, not a battement. The key to a good battement is first to have good flexibility. Once you have that down, you have to brush your foot of the floor like you would do in a degage, but you want to beat as high as you can while maintaining your whole body.

The only thing that should move in a battement is the working leg. Your upper body should stay completely aligned.

Answer: Round of the leg

This was a hard one. Yes, the literal translation of rond de jambe is round of the leg. You want to keep your hips squared to the front and you want to really push your turnout!

Answer: Jump

The goal of a saute is to jump high enough for your bottom leg to brush out along with your top leg. You want to be able to point the foot of the bottom leg!

Answer: False

You DO rise together in a sous sus, but that is not the literal translation. The literal translation is under over. Yes that seems like a random translation for a sous sus, but that is what it really means.

Answer: On the neck of the foot

If you match up the French translation and the English translation you will see: Sur (on) le (the)- cou (neck)- de (of)- pied (foot)

Answer: Half

There are several things that you can put with demi, like demi plie and demi point. A lot of people just call a demi plie a plie, but the "proper" name for a plie is demi plie. Just like you can say "battement tendu" or "battement frappe" or just "tendu" and "frappe" and they mean the same thing. Demi point is how dancers start out ballet, half point.

Then as they get more experience, they move up to pointe, which is on the tips of the toes using pointe shoes.

Answer: Chase

A chasse is a three step move and can be done any direction. It is a step-together-step move.

Answer: Thrown

While a lot of people think jete means jump, it does NOT mean jump. The literal translation is actually thrown!