Ballet Tips (Intro and Tendus)

Misty Copeland (Professional ballerina with ABT)

Hello all!

I am also excited to share with you ballet tips! I hope the information I will write below will help you with your dancing skills. This applies to professional dance students and beginner dancers alike.

I will start with basic steps then gradually give tips on harder, more advanced steps.

The first ballet step I would like to give tips on is tendu, which is a French that means "to extend". This is one of many fundamental steps in the ballet world. An important thing to think about when you do a tendu whether it's to the front, side or back, is to really brush the floor before pointing the foot. You want to think of using the floor and pushing into it slightly to succeed in doing a strong tendu. Another important thing to have in mind is to extend the working leg into a full, complete line. The toes must be fully pointed. Keep a solid turnout in both legs, the supporting leg and the moving leg, thinking of turning out from and also lifting from the hips rather than the legs. Make sure that when you point your foot in tendu devant (tendu front) and tendu derrière (tendu back) the toes do not cross the foot of your supporting leg nor be slightly angled to the outside corners. You either want your toes directly to the front or directly to the back. When doing a tendu to the side, you want to think of making a straight line from your hip. It is okay if your leg straightens out in a slight diagonal, especially if your turnout is not 180 degree but you should still try your post to extend as much to the side as possible while still maintaining your turnout.

That's all I've got for now. I hope it helps! If I'm missing anything you'd like me to add about tendus (especially for those more advanced dancers that might be reading this blog), please let me know at my email caraprimab@gmail.com or inbox me on my Instagram. I will also post a video on my Instagram to demonstrate a visual example of this exercise. Make sure to check it out this week!