Names of steps and positions in ballet...

[Claude_Catastrophique]

Inspired by someone who said that the position B+ would be "B" for Balanchine I would like to collect some steps, jumps and positions whose origine is similar to B+. I mean, many steps and so on are just some kind of french translation of the movements but it would be fun and interesting to learn where others are coming from (like sissone...I guess it was Major Mel who once wrote somewhere why it is called that way, or Royale).

 

Share your knowledge here!

[Hans]

Sissonne (two N's) is named for the person who invented it, the Comte (?) de Sissonne.

 

The term "royale" is actually not used in France; they refer to it as entrechat-trois. What we in the US know as entrechat-trois the French would call entrechat-trois ramassé. I'm not sure where "royale" comes from, although I have heard the story about Louis XIV being unable to do entrechat-quatre.

[Mel Johnson]

Yup, it was François-Ҫésar de Roussy, Comte de Sissonne. And Louis XIV started doing royales when he stopped playing juveniles, which costumes were generally short Grecian tunics and sandals, and started dancing noble roles, where he had to wear the obligatory tonnelet and heeled boots! No more entrechat-six! It's a miracle he could get off the ground at all in those getups.

[Claude_Catastrophique]

Thanks for sharing those two! Oh yes, I remember that having read about King Louis being unable to do entrechat quatre. I always wondered what "entrechat" means. I have got that with the numbers and I recently learnt how to count them properly but I am stilly wondering what entrechat means (I do speak French and I always understood it wrong in class until I have seen it written once and it did not make sense anymore to me...)

[Mel Johnson]

I always wondered what "entrechat" means.

 

It means "interwoven" or "braided". Metaphorically, it works.

[Claude_Catastrophique]

Oh yes That was a very intelligent person who invented that name

[olddude]

I always wondered what "entrechat" means.

 

It means "interwoven" or "braided". Metaphorically, it works.

Dang - I always thought it meant "between the cats", like you have a bunch of cats you don't want to step on.

 

So how about those who say pas de bourrée is "step of the drunk"? One of my teachers always said this, and I liked it so well I never tried to look it up - but maybe this thread is the right place to do so!

[gimpydancer]

LOVE it!!!

[Mel Johnson]

The Bourrée was a folk dance from Picardy. It was in duple meter, and got taken into more formal ballroom use during the Renaissance. In the French of the day, "bourrée" meant "buzzed", after the rapid sound of the feet in the dance. So, buzzed, drunk, yeah, in today's usage, maybe so.

[Lidewij]

Does any of you happen to know where 'pas de basque' comes from?

The only thing I can think of is the Basque people, but there may be other meanings to the word - don't have a french dictionary near me right now.

[Mel Johnson]

Nope, that's all it means - Basque step.

[olddude]

The Bourrée was a folk dance from Picardy. It was in duple meter, and got taken into more formal ballroom use during the Renaissance. In the French of the day, "bourrée" meant "buzzed", after the rapid sound of the feet in the dance. So, buzzed, drunk, yeah, in today's usage, maybe so.

Thanks!

 

With that hint, and a bit of googling, I found the colloquial "beurré" meaning drunk or plastered but sounding like bourrée. Unfortunately I think it means literally "buttered" from the verb beurrer, to butter.

[Claude_Catastrophique]

I always thought that it would be "entre chaque" (in sense of between everyone four or so) and it never made sense how to count them. Once I figured out that it is not entre chaque but entrechat I was thinking of the cat too (I mean, we have got cats in ballet...pas de chat).

 

I had some confusion with soubresaut too... when I was a child I thought it would be supresso...suppressed...and it did not made any sense.

[olddude]

OK, another update on bourrée. The term is in fact used to describe a badly drunk person, at least according to a Canadienne Française (if I have THAT right! :^) who is in many of my classes. She has not heard of using beurré, only bourrée. I have not been able to finds a conjugation of "boire" to correspond. Maybe it's onomatopoetic.

 

Of course Major Mel's remark is the only historical one and has to be the actual origin. But the others are pretty amusing