How to Do a Passe Position | 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. A passe is when you bring one foot up to the side of your knee Standing in either first or fifth position, or it can come in the middle of a turn when your coming from fourth position. So, I'm going to demonstrate passe in first position. You want to lift your toe up and put it directly inside of your knee. You don't want to put you foot flat on your knee as you see in a tree position in yoga. You want to make sure your toe is just resting lightly and you should be able to move it and there should be no weight on your knee. And also the foot position in the passe is very important. You want to make sure that you're not sickeling or winging your foot. So a good way to figure out the correct foot position would be to wrap your toe around your ankle. The wrapping acton brings your toes behind and your heel forward. From that position you can slowly rise your foot up all the way to passe. Another important thing about Passe is not lifting the hips. It's very common that people do passe and lift the hip and then your foot sickels. So, to practice this relaxation in your hips you can stand in parallel and you want to just practice marching and this is fully relaxed hips just like you were marching when you were a little kid. So you can use that same action in Passe. Your leg is going to come all the way up an in your hip there is going to be no shift in your hips. So Demonstrating a passe, and down. No shift in my hips, no wiggling around nothing's happening, Everything is engaged and just a very simple passe and then down.