[bright music] [dramatic orchestral music] - Hi, my name is Lauren, and I am a teaching artist with the New Victory Theater.

Today, we are going to peek inside the world of ballet, learn a few basic ballet movements, and then remix them in our own way.

Are you ready?

Let's jete right in, jete!

Okay, before we begin, a quick fact.

Did you know that ballet originated in France in the 15th century?

That's why the names of all the ballet movements are in French.

For example, the word jete means jump.

When I jeted, I jumped.

Sometimes that can make the words feel a little tough to understand, so it helps to translate them.

Plie, bend, tendu, stretch, fondu, melt, jete, jump.

Jete!

Now that we know the words, let's put these movements into our bodies.

I've invited my friend Shavonne to dance with me today.

Hey, Shavonne.

- Hey, Lauren!

- While we experiment with these moves, please know that whatever feels right to you is what you should do.

My body may look and feel and move very different from Shavonne's body, and theirs is probably different than yours, and that's okay.

Dance is for everybody, and dance is for every body.

Okay, welcome to my barre.

Let's start with plie.

[gentle piano music] - Plie, bend.

- Yeah, totally.

But our legs aren't the only places we can bend, right?

We can bend other places in our body.

Like, we could bend our wrists.

Where else can we bend, Shavonne?

- Our head.

- Yes, side to side.

Nice, yeah, so many places to bend.

Now we're gonna learn another ballet move.

It's tendu.

- Tendu, stretch.

- Yeah, totally.

A lot of times you'll see dancers using their legs and their feet to tendu, like this.

[gentle piano music continues] - Tendu, stretch.

[laughs] Where else could we stretch?

- Mm, our hands?

- Okay, show me.

Okay, I'm gonna try it, big stretch, good.

We could get even bigger and stretch our whole arms really straight and long like this.

And then on the other side, stretch, nice.

[gentle piano music continues] Okay, this last one is really fun.

It's my favorite, but it does make me kind of hungry.

It is fondu.

- Oh, fondu, melt.

- Exactly, yes, and I'm gonna show you a fondu using my legs right now.

[gentle piano music continues] You see it?

- I see it.

- Okay, where else can we melt?

How do you wanna melt?

- Can we just like melt our whole body?

Can we- - Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

Let's melt, ready?

From the top down.

What are you melting like?

- Chocolate.

- Oh, I'm melting like melty cheese.

[Shavonne laughs] Now let's use these three moves to make a short dance.

We've got plie, bend, tendu, stretch, and fondu, melt, three very different ways of moving.

Let's take a minute to translate them into our own bodies and put them together in a sequence or an order, one, two, three, and then we'll add a jete at the end.

Let's get to work.

[upbeat music] [mellow music] Okay, I have my sequence.

Do you feel ready?

- Yes.

- Good.

I just wanna change the music now to something a little different.

[mellow music] That's better, sweet.

Are you ready for me?

Okay, here it comes.

[mellow music continues] - Yeah!

- What ballet movements did you see?

- Well, I saw you stretch your arm, stretch your leg, then melt, jump.

- Yeah, perfect, great.

I tendued, I tendued, I fondued, and then I jeted.

- Mm-hmm.

- How about you?

You ready to share?

- Okay.

- Okay, let's see.

[bright music] Ah, loved it!

All right, so you had a stretch, a bend and melt, and then a jete.

- Mm-hmm.

- Beautiful, great, amazing.

I really, really love what we made today, Shavonne.

And we could even keep going.

We could remix our ballet moves in different ways by changing the music or even the qualities of our movements, right?

Thank you so much for collaborating with me, Shavonne.

- Thank you, Lauren.

I had such a fun time.

- Me, too.

And thank you for dancing with us, too.

Now it's your turn.

Choose your three ballet moves and translate them into your body, then remix.

Add whatever music feels right to you and your body.

Have fun, and we'll see you next time.

- [Both] Jete!