Plié is a bending of the knees, performed with the back straight and the legs turned out.
Plié (French for 'bent') is a fundamental movement in ballet in which the dancer bends both knees while keeping the back straight, the heels grounded (in a demi-plié) or lifted (in a grand plié), and the legs turned out from the hip. Taught from a dancer's very first class and drilled at the barre before every rehearsal, the plié is less a step in itself than the mechanical foundation underneath nearly every other step: jumps launch from a plié and land in one, turns are initiated from a plié, and the quality of a dancer's plié — its depth, control, and the fluidity with which they pass through it — often separates a merely correct performance from an expressive one. Vaganova-trained Russian dancers in particular are known for an unusually deep, sustained plié, prized for the extra height and softness it lends to jumps.