the.com/plie
A graceful squat dressed in French, secretly the engine behind every jump and landing.
means A ballet movement in which a dancer bends the knees while keeping the back straight and heels grounded (or rising), used to power and cushion almost every other step.
from Straight from French plié, meaning 'bent' or 'folded' — the past participle of plier, 'to bend,' which traces back to Latin plicare, 'to fold.' That same Latin root quietly folds itself into a whole family of English words like 'pliable,' 'apply,' and 'complicated.' Ballet borrowed wholesale from French, the language of the form's early codification, so a dancer bending the knees is, quite literally, doing 'the bent thing.'
- means
- French for bent or folded
- two flavors
- Demi stays shallow, grand drops heels-up deep
- jump fuel
- Every leap begins and ends here
- first lesson
- One of ballet's earliest moves taught
- knee guard
- Absorbs shock to spare dancers' joints
ballet — fundamental knee-bending movement performed in classical ballet training worldwide
swan lake act 2 — odette performs plies in the lakeside scene, tchaikovsky 1877