What You'll Learn
- The fundamental differences between croisé (crossed) and effacé (open) body positions.
- How to correctly execute écarté devant and derrière by aligning the hips to the corner.
- The visual impact of ballet angles and how they can lengthen or shorten the appearance of your legs.
- Techniques for maintaining proper épaulement and shoulder placement during directional changes.
About This Video
Understanding the geometry of the stage is one of the most transformative steps a dancer can take. In this Broche Ballet crash course, we simplify the complex world of ballet body directions, focusing on the three pillars of classical placement: croisé, effacé, and écarté. Many students find these terms confusing because they describe how the body relates to the audience rather than just where the leg is moving.
This video demystifies these positions, providing you with a clear roadmap for your next center practice. " When you stand in croisé, you are angled toward a corner so that your legs appear crossed from the audience's perspective. It is a fundamental position that adds depth and dimension to your dancing.
You will learn the nuances of croisé devant and croisé derrière, focusing on how to maintain your squareness even when the body is on a diagonal. This position is essential for creating the classical "closed" look often seen in adagio. " In effacé, your body is angled so that the legs appear open and uncrossed to the viewer.
This position is the key to creating long, sweeping lines and is frequently utilized in grand allegro and traveling steps. We break down effacé devant and effacé derrière, teaching you how to use your eye line and shoulders to enhance the openness of the pose. Finally, we tackle écarté.
This position is unique because it places the leg to the side (à la seconde) while the body remains on a diagonal. Whether you are working on écarté devant or écarté derrière, the focus is on the relationship between your hips and your working leg. Ballet is essentially the art of angles.
Just as a model knows how to tilt their head or angle their shoulders for a photo, a dancer must know how to use body directions to create the most aesthetically pleasing lines. By the end of this lesson, you will have a firm grasp of these beautiful rules of the stage, allowing you to dance with greater confidence and technical accuracy.
