How to Do a Glissade | Ballet Dance

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My name is Maegan Woodin, and I'm a professional dancer, choreographer, teacher and student. I have danced for MTV, Diana Ross, Marc Jacobs and have appeared in many music videos. You can find more information about me and my career, as well as photos and videos, at www.dgtnyc.com. I'm going to be talking to you about ballet. Glissade is a step used in petit allegro and it's a sliding or gliding, just as we would slide or glide on ice, and you wanna be gliding across the floor. So we're going to start in a fifth position and you're going to start taking your feet in fifth position and plieing with both feet on the ground and you're going to land the movement, this is the end of the movement, on one foot and the other foot closes in fifth position. So it starts on 2 feet and lands on 1. So, starting with the foot that you're using back, you're going to plie 2 feet. Bring this foot out to the side, making sure it's following the natural turnout line, jump up in the air, with one foot out to the side turned out, heel forward, and straightening in fifth position. This is usually taught as a movement step, side to side, but you actually wanna think about it as you would jump straight up as you would in a normal changement. You wanna think about this movement going straight up rather than side to side. So demonstrating this movement straight up it's great to use the bar because you can use the strength of the bar and your muscles to lift you up to get that feeling of soaring high in the air. So that's a glissade, side to side. So you wanna think of it up and over, up and over.