Pas de deux is a dance for two people — the central duet of classical ballet.
A pas de deux (French: 'step of two') is a dance performed by two people, typically a male and female dancer in classical ballet. The classical grand pas de deux follows a formal structure developed in 19th-century ballet: an opening adagio (slow section in which the male partner supports the ballerina through sustained poses and lifts), separate variations for each dancer (in which each performs a solo), and a concluding coda (in which both return together in a faster, more brilliant final section). The pas de deux is the dramatic and emotional heart of classical ballet. Petipa's pas de deux from Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker are their finest examples. In contemporary dance and modern ballet, the pas de deux has been reinvented endlessly — same-sex, non-hierarchical, confrontational, comedic. The classical 'grand pas de deux,' codified in 19th-century Russian Imperial Ballet choreography, follows a strict five-part structure: an entrée introducing both dancers, an adagio performed together showcasing partnering, lifts and sustained balance, individual variations for each dancer displaying solo virtuosity, and a coda bringing both back together for a bravura finish, often including turns or jumps performed in direct competition or dialogue with each other. Marius Petipa, the choreographer most responsible for formalizing this structure in works like 'Swan Lake,' 'The Sleeping Beauty' and 'Don Quixote,' used the pas de deux as the evening's technical and emotional centerpiece — the moment where narrative pauses and the two principal dancers demonstrate, in pure movement, the relationship the story has been building. The form's partnering vocabulary — lifts, supported pirouettes, promenades in which the male dancer turns his partner slowly while she holds an extended pose — requires a degree of trust and physical calibration between dancers that companies often build over years of working together. Twentieth-century choreographers from Balanchine onward have both preserved and radically reinvented the pas de deux form, stripping away narrative pretext entirely in neoclassical works to focus purely on the physical and musical relationship between two bodies — a lineage that runs in an unbroken line back to Petipa's original theatrical showcase structure.