“After the in-place alignment  [...] the plié and relevé series. The dancers performed the movements radiating out into the dimensions of the room or stage and projected them through the forward wall and out into the imagined audience and further out to the back of the auditorium. Open pliés were pressed out into space, and closed positions were performed from the ‘in place’ positions.”

Regarding the various classical ballet schools and the positions of the feet, in her book The Ballet Companion, Eliza Gaynor Minden states that “The syllabi of the major schools of ballet evolved as they traveled or underwent reinterpretation. Disciples can disagree, and disputes can arise over what the Cecchettis of the world really intended...The major schools of ballet all use Beauchamps’s original positions of the feet and, for the most part, the same French terminology."

There’s a lot more to say about turnout in ballet, dance, and other techniques, but today I’d like to keep it brief and focus a few of it’s key results, or stability in standing in closed and open positions of the feet, and as Gaynor Minden describes: “Turnout enables the dancer to move easily from side to side, to jump, and to pose without ever turning away from the audience...Turnout is what enables a dancer to raise the leg elegantly to the side without displacing the hips or torso.”

Turnout is that it is helpful in dancing to the extent that it is functional. Forcing it is ultimately not functional, and can also lead to knee or other injuries the likes of which I have experienced myself. Building balanced strength and flexibility is important to turnout or external rotation of the legs as well as to all movement possibilities, and as it is an important concept, especially to classical ballet but also to modern and other dance forms.

I implicitly understood, from years of practice, the import of plies, but their significance became more explicitly clear to me when I took Modern Dance with Betsy Fisher at the University of Hawai’i. Having performed with the Murray Louis Dance Company, Fisher incorporated the technique into her teaching, and it features key ideas about space and shape, including the dimensions and planes I previously spoke of. I’ve followed up that practical technical experience with reading from the book she recommended, The Nikolais/Louis Dance Technique.

Here is the connection between the spatial dimensions and the foot positions in dancing: “Since the dimensions of the body were the first principle to be explored, it was essential to establish a ‘room architecture’ and forward orientation, and to maintain this throughout the class. Once the architectural forward orientation was established, the body could then be related to it. This was also the beginning practice of stage directions.”

Spatial orientation was established, the body is then warmed up, including a plié series which is “based on the dimensions of the body and their extension into space. First position: in place vertical up and down, second position: width sideward R. and L., third position: in place diagonal, fourth position open diagonal, fifth position: in place, sixth position: depth, forward-backward. Between open positions, return to vertical (in place) with proper arrival of arms and legs in closed positions, so the action goes from in to out--closed to open, in place to spatial.”

Each position appears differently to the audience, and each prepares us to move in different directions and in different ways, so we practice plie, the ultimate preparatory movement in ballet, in each shape.  For more information, visit ablythecoach.com