Dance

Jeté

Nijinsky reportedly hung in the air longer than physics should allow.

FR  —  A jump in ballet in which one leg is thrown forward

A jeté (French: 'thrown') is a jump in classical ballet in which the weight is transferred from one foot to the other through the action of throwing one leg — the working leg is 'thrown' into the air, extending fully, while the body rises and the other leg follows. The grand jeté is ballet's most spectacular jump: the dancer leaps forward with legs fully split in the air, body arched, arms extended, creating for a fraction of a second a perfect horizontal line suspended above the floor. Nijinsky's legendary ability to appear to pause in the air during the grand jeté became one of the great myths of early 20th-century dance — audiences genuinely could not account for the apparent suspension. The petit jeté, by contrast, is a small, precise throw used in fast footwork combinations. The family of jeté movements covers everything from the simplest step to the most spectacular aerial feat.

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