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Ballet Talk for Dancers

third position..


Guest iheartashton847

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Guest iheartashton847

I have been dancing for a while, and I still don't even know third position, my teacher simply says that it is not important, but it just seems kind of weird to me, skipping a step, so i guess my question is, what is third position, and is it really alll that important?

thank you:)

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Third position is just like fifth position, except that instead of the feet being crossed toe to heel, the heel of the front foot is in front of the back foot's arch. It is mostly used in character dance and baroque dance. It is the "default" stance for a male ballet dancer when he has to stand onstage (sort of the way women always seem to be standing in attitude derrière à terre).

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  • 2 weeks later...

They are supposed to, at least in formal ballets such as the 19th century classics, but it usually doesn't happen anymore outside of places like the Kirov.

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Does Third Position have any other uses? I know that somwtimes it is used in a slightly turned in Third Position for character. Did THird Position evolve into FIfth Position?

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I know that my old school used it as a transition to fifth, when I was younger we used it in ballet but as we got older everything changed to fifth.

One of my friends at another studio had a teacher who got really frustrated at her class and yelled at them saying that if they were not going to provide a propper fifth they might as well do third.

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Fifth position as we know it today goes all the way back to 1725, and the first basic codification of steps and positions in the way they're used today.

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oh I was wondering why my teacher doesn't let me do anything in third. I have an injury (probably a permanent one) on my knee and it sometimes gets really hard to do a clean fifth position and I beg him like "please let me do that in third" lol ok I won't do that anymore =)

(by the way it's funny, I can recall doing things in third when I was in state ballet..weird, anyway)

Edited by skyish
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At my school (I think), little ones do 1st, Grade 3 & below is 3rd, in Grade 4 we start doing 5th & 4th croise in plies & then Grade 5 & up is in 5th. I had my first Grade 5 lesson last night & my ankles kinda hurt a bit after barre work from doing things in 5th!

Edited by ElphieBean
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