Fouetté
I woke up with this word on my mind. I have no idea why as I haven’t been watching ballet recently and have never studied it in great depth.
The word comes from the French fouetter, meaning to flog or whip.
A fouetté or ‘fouetté rond de jamb en tournant’, to give it its full name, is a movement in ballet in which the dancer stands on one foot and moves the free leg in a whipping motion in front or behind the body while spinning. It is an extremely difficult move to perfect and takes determination and hours of practice.
Most professional ballet dancers train for about six hours a day for six days of the week and are judged to be among the fittest of all athletes. The nature of their work means that their bones are strengthened as well as their muscles, because dancing is a weight-bearing occupation. After eight to ten years of training, a professional ballet dancer’s life as a performer does not usually last beyond the age of thirty-five. There are exceptions, of course.
The ballets in which thirty-two fouettés can be seen are Swan Lake, in the pas de deux of the Black Swan, and the wedding pas de deux in Don Quixote.
