What is a Développé?
Développé means (you guessed it!) to develop, translating into ballet vocabulary as a smooth, gradual unfolding of the leg. The dancer draws the working leg through a sur le cou-de-pied pointed position, traces the toe up the supporting leg to a retiré position, before unfolding the leg out into a sustained extension to the front, side, or back.
The développé is a fundamental adagio step, both at the barre and in the center. The big slow movements build strength and control, putting your balance and turnout to the ultimate test. As fellow dancers, we understand the blood, sweat and tears behind this movement – it is challenging enough just to lift your leg high, but to sustain the lifted position, while showing excellent technique and making it look effortless? It is easier said than done.
But don’t fret! Here is our some of our tips and tricks:
Développé Devant
• Slowly peel your foot up into a retiré position (feel your inner thighs working!)
• Have your weight slightly forward on your standing foot such that you are not resting on the heel.
• Stay lifted in your supporting side, engaging your abdominals and lengthening your spine.
• Engage your turnout equally, keeping your hips stay square with no hitching or twisting.
• Slowly unfold the leg, passing through attitude devant, into a full extension.
• Imagine serving a cup of tea balanced on your heel to the person in front of you! This ensures we are controlling our turnout at our hip.
• Use your heel as the guide of your extension rather than your knee –– when our focus is on the knee, we tend to overuse the quads and grip them.
• Extend the leg instead by using the back of your legs, while pressing your psoas and core downwards in opposition.
• Try not to cheat extra height by tucking the pelvis, remember to stabilise your spine by using your deep back muscles instead.
• Slowly rotate the working leg in and out in order to master control of the hip in the socket.
• Lower the leg back to the floor with control, making sure your back does not arch.
• Carefully close back to fifth.
Développé A la Seconde
Pretty similar to performing a développé devant, except keeping your hips and torso square is particularly challenging in this position and a very common correction.
• From your beautiful retiré position, focus first on lifting your knee without hitching the hips.
• Use the help of your core and hip flexors (iliopsoas) to then extend your lower leg out to reach full extension.
• As you lower the leg, think about lengthening it even further.
• Carefully close back to fifth.
Développé Derrière
• Begin as always with a beautiful retiré.
• Lift the knee and thigh to pass through an attitude position before extending the leg to arabesque.
• Try not to lift your leg from your back first – the best sequence is to activate your glutes, then your hamstrings and then your lumbar muscles.
• Avoid crunching into the lower back by lifting and engaging the abdominals.
• Remember to adjust your upper body forwards rather than downwards (the hand on the barre also needs to slide forward so that the shoulders do not twist).
• Think about the connection between your pointed toes and your opposite shoulder so that the leg does not stray to the side (hello inner thighs!)
• As you lower your arabesque to the floor, adjust your upper body back .
• Carefully close back to fifth.
Développés are a marathon not a sprint! The leg can be kept low in the beginning, concentrating on using the core muscles to lift the leg, as well as learning to control the line of the hips. With patience and commitment, you can build greater height and beautiful extensions. We also have the laws of gravity on our side –– meaning that as our legs extend above 90º, they also become lighter to lift!
Lastly, remember not to get stuck at the barre, there are plenty of conditioning exercises to improve flexibility and strength to compliment your ballet training. Head to our article “More Stretching Less Stressing” as we break down some simple stretches you can practice at home or in the studio!
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