A great overview of Tendu Ballet definition:
Video Summary of Tendu Ballet definition:
My name is Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg, principal dancer with Miami City Ballet, and author of So You Want to Be A Ballet Dancer. I’m here at [unclear – 00:09] studios in Miami and I’m going to show you how we do tendus.
We’ll start out in a parallel position with our feet together – what we call a sixth position. And we’ll slowly rotate the legs open so that the feet are open opposite each other into a turned out first position. We’ll just keep our arm down, rounded, for now. We’re going to do a tendu to the side, or a tendu à la seconde.
Keeping the heel right where it is, sliding that foot on the floor and using the inner thigh muscles we take the foot out to the side, toe pointed down to the ground. Now we don’t want to crunch the toes into the ground, but we want to very lightly just kiss the floor with our big toe. And squeeze it back in trying to use all of the muscles underneath the metatarsals of the feet — Out and in.
Thinking about the hips staying very square to the front wall. Tendu — Out and squeeze in. Tendu out, squeeze in. If you’d like a challenge you can do the same to the front and the back and use the arm if you wish. Forward – heel stays up like you’re going to hold a cup of tea on your heel – and back to first.
Second, as we just did, and back to first. Behind your spine into an arabesque – and first – and side – and first, all the while keeping the pelvis forward, hips straight to the wall. And that’s how you do a tendu.
More explanation: