Jumps & steps
01 · Term and function
What is Emboîté?
A sequence of alternating one-legged jumps or steps in which the legs alternate like interlocking movements. Common or school-dependent terms in the source register: emboîté.
plié · push off · fly · organize · land
force absorption, takeoff, flight organization, and controlled landing
Interactive schematic movement analysis with its own movement logic
02 · Technical execution
What matters in Emboîté
Clarify which leg supports and which leg becomes free.
Coordinate the transition without losing the direction of travel.
Use precise foot articulation in takeoff, placement, and landing.
Keep the upper body available for continuation rather than bracing.
Carry the movement into the next step or phrase.
Body awareness: Notice which part of the body supports the movement, which part travels, and where the movement can remain clear without forcing range, turnout, speed, or height.
03 · Movement phases
Emboîté step by step
Organize weight, direction, feet, torso, and focus for the movement that follows.
Carry out this phase with a clear direction, coordinated weight organization, and controlled transition into the next phase.
Maintain the position without freezing the body; support, breath, and gaze remain active.
Rotate with a clear supporting organization and maintain spatial orientation through torso, head, and gaze.
04 · For children and beginners
Observe and explore safely
Practice the preparation and landing before adding speed, height, beats, or rotation. Keep the jump small enough to land quietly and with control.
Which foot or leg is supporting you right now, and which part is moving?
Can you keep the direction and supporting organization clear while the movement changes?
Work only as large, fast, or high as you can control comfortably and without pain.
05 · Teaching and feedback
What teachers and learners can observe
Takeoff, leg organization, foot articulation, axis, and controlled landing.
Appropriate force in push-off and controlled absorption on landing.
Usable range without visible compensation in the pelvis or torso.
Timing, duration, flight rhythm, and intentional accent.
Clear direction, focus, beginning, and finish.
Maximum height, speed, turnout, or range is not a meaningful criterion on its own. What matters is controlled, physically coherent execution.
06 · Choreographic use
How the effect of Emboîté can change
A technical movement is shaped on stage by time, space, form, gaze, and relationship. These variables change perception without assigning a fixed psychological meaning to the movement.
The balance between stepping and flight changes how the phrase moves through space.
Quick changes or suspended moments alter momentum.
Forward, side, diagonal, and turning continuations reorganize focus.
The step-jump sequence can follow, cross, avoid, or answer another dancer.
07 · Feeling, need, and relationship
Possible readings — not fixed meanings
Feelings and needs are not derived from Emboîté itself. They are possible readings of a specific situation. Feeling, need, intention, and movement operation therefore remain separate.
Possible feelings: concentration, composure. Possible needs: orientation, stability. Possible intentions: prepare, organize, sustain a state.
Possible feelings: determination, tension. Possible needs: clarity, effectiveness. Possible intentions: set an impulse, mark a direction.
Possible feelings: connection, caution, resistance, or curiosity — depending on context. Possible needs: cooperation, autonomy, respect, or orientation. Possible intentions: respond, follow, avoid, support, or mark a boundary.
Choreographic guiding question: How does one person’s action change another person’s possibilities for action?
08 · Continue learning
From Emboîté to related movements
The supporting foot prepares takeoff through plié, leaves the floor, and receives the landing again. The working leg remains free of the floor.
A small jumping weight transfer: one leg brushes out, the body leaves the floor and lands on the brushing leg while the other leg becomes free.
Pas de chat means “cat step.” From plié the legs lift one after the other; both are briefly in the air before a controlled landing.
Couru consists of very small rapid steps on demi-pointe or pointe that carry the body continuously through space.
Additional professional background
Books on learning and body awareness
The movement lexicon complements two book projects by Mathias Ellmann: The Ballet Teaching Tree for reflective, healthy learning and Leni and Oscar and the Secret of the Ballet Tree for younger readers.
The Ballet Teaching Tree
A model for healthy, reflective, artistically oriented ballet learning — with body awareness, motivation, self-respect, and long-term development.
About The Ballet Teaching Tree
Leni and Oscar and the Secret of the Ballet Tree
A story about body awareness, courage, learning, and the joy of development for younger readers.
About the children’s bookConcept · Ballet knowledge · Choreography
Mathias Ellmann
Mathias Ellmann develops the Ballet Movement Lexicon as a connection between classical ballet technique, body awareness, learning, and choreographic application.
Movements are first described in observable terms. Choreographic variables, relationship, and possible dramaturgical readings are added only afterwards.
In the contemporary ballet projects, classical ballet technique is used as a precise language of human relationships. The central question is: How does one person’s action change another person’s possibilities for action?