Breaking down the 8 body positions Week 1

Hey there! I'm going back to the basics and going to spend our first 4 Technique Tuesdays talking about the 8 Cecchetti Positions. This week: Croisé devant & À la quatrième devant.

Croisé devant (kw-ah-zay dē-vah-nt) translates into Crossed to the front.

In ballet class I often say "draw an imaginary square around your feet"; you always want to use that square in ballet, not the corners of the room.

Now, technically your leg is NOT crossed over the midline of your body, it is Crossed because you are facing the corner of your square, using your leg closest to the mirror or audience or front of the room (whichever you prefer to call it, lets say mirror today) and extending it into a tendu devant. Your body is straight from the waist down, hips square, toe on the floor directly in line with your hip joint, or it's also acceptable to have your toe in front of your standing heel or arch. It's ok to twist your shoulders to the mirror and the head should look toward your 2nd position arm (to the side). But NO chin to shoulder!  It's a slight turn and slight tilt of the head. There you have it!  Croisé devant!

À la quatrième (kw-ah-tree-em) devant translates into "in the fourth front". Meaning, your feet are in the 4th position faced front. Your arms are open in a nice elongated 2nd position, head is en face (sounds like "boss"- means in front, or "faced"), shoulders over squared hips, and one foot extended forward to a tendu devant. If you stood in a first position and drew a line on the floor between your feet along the midline of your body, your tendu foot would touch that line. It's also acceptable to have your tendu foot in line with the arch of the opposite foot. There's several methods of ballet so there's some variation here and there. It's not wrong or right, just different. There you go, À la quatrième devant!

Anyone can study ballet just like they study yoga. 

Be kind and patient with yourself, it is about PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION. Although we started with some pretty simple concepts and I'm confident you can get them perfectly. ❤️

Take photos of your positions and post them on my FB page @ReviveMM! I'd love to see you! That's all for Technique Tuesday, Happy Dancing! 

~Karie