Here's what I figured out after sixteen-plus years of dance-mom duty and a lot of eavesdropping in the studio lobby: you don't memorize ballet terms by translating them. You memorize them by picturing them. That's the whole trick. One trick. I just run every word through three different filters so my brain has somewhere to file it: animals, objects, and things that sound like I'm making dinner.

Grab a snack. Kitchen puns are coming.

Picture the animal and the step tends to follow. Your brain remembers a pigeon a lot faster than it remembers "a cabriole where the legs beat and switch."

Ailes de pigeon (ehl duh pee-ZHON): "wings of the pigeon." A cabriole where the legs beat, change, and beat again. Flappy, dramatic, very pigeon.

Chaînes du papillon (shen-AY doo pah-pee-YON): chaînes turns dressed up with butterfly (papillon) port de bras. Spinning, but with wings.

Pas de cheval (pah duh shuh-VAL): "step of the horse." That little pawing action through cou-de-pied, exactly like a horse scuffing the ground before it does something you'll regret.

Poisson (pwah-SON): "fish." The arched, diving fish shape, usually the glamorous half of a lift. Yes, you are the fish. Own it.

Saut de chat (soh duh SHAH): "cat's jump." A leap where the front leg develops out as you spring, so you clear the floor like a cat hopping over a puddle it finds personally offensive.

These ones hide a physical object right there in the name. Find the object, keep the shape.

Bras en couronne (brah on koo-RON): "arms in a crown." Rounded up overhead like you're balancing a tiara you did not pay for.

Chaînes (shen-AY): "chains." Those quick linked turns that chain across the floor, one link after another after another until you run out of floor or nerve.

Cloche (klawsh): "bell." Grands battements swinging front to back through first, like a bell. Or a very elegant metronome.

En croix (on KRWAH): "in a cross." Front, side, back, side. You're drawing a cross with your working leg, which is a tidy way to hold the order when the teacher suddenly doubles the tempo.

Pas de ciseaux (pah duh see-ZOH): "scissors step." A switch leap where the legs cut past each other like scissors. Snip.

Here's my favorite bucket, and the one people love to mislabel as "food." These are not foods. They're what you do to food. Every one is a cooking verb, so if you can survive a recipe, you can survive these.

Ballotté (bah-loh-TAY): "tossed." A rocking step, tossed front and back like something in a sauté pan you're pretending to have under control.

Battement (baht-MON): "beating." A beating action of the working leg. Think whisking, but with your foot and considerably more attitude.

Coupé (koo-PAY): "cut." The working foot cuts the supporting foot out of its spot and takes over. Rude, honestly, but efficient. (Also a very nice glass, if you're pouring something after class.)

Fouetté (fweh-TAY): "whipped." The whipping turn. Thirty-two in a row in Swan Lake, which is either the most impressive or the most unhinged thing in ballet, depending on how your own turns are going that day.

Frappé (frah-PAY): "struck." A striking action of the foot against the floor. Also a cold coffee drink, which is roughly what you've earned after a full page of frappés.

Fine, you caught me. It's really one trick (picture the word) sorted into three buckets so nothing floats off. Animals, objects, kitchen. Run any new term you meet through those three and see where it lands. Half of ballet French is just very fancy nouns and verbs wearing a leotard.

Now go be the fish.

xx Sharene

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