Ballet Poses and Their Names: A Visual Guide

You’ve seen these poses your whole life, even if you never knew their names. The dancer balanced on one leg with the other stretched out behind her, long and elegant. The one bent backward like a wave. The spinning one that somehow doesn’t get dizzy. Ballet has a name for every shape a body can make, and once you learn a few, you’ll start spotting them everywhere.

So let’s put names to the pretty pictures. Here are the famous ballet poses, what each one looks like, and how to tell them apart.

Arabesque: the one everybody knows

If ballet had a logo, it would be the arabesque. You stand on one straight leg, extend the other leg straight out behind you, and reach your arms forward and to the side so your whole body makes one long, unbroken line. Fingertip to pointed back toe, it’s a single sweeping curve.

The word is French for a decorative flourish, the kind of swirly ornament you’d see carved into an old picture frame. That’s the whole idea. Your body becomes the decoration.

First arabesque, second arabesque, and the numbers

Here’s the part that trips people up. You’ll hear “first arabesque” and “third arabesque” and wonder what changed, because the leg looks identical every time. The secret is that the numbers describe your arms and shoulders, not your legs.

• The leg shape stays the same: one leg down, one leg long behind you.
• What shifts is which arm reaches forward, which one goes to the side, and how your body angles toward the audience.

One quick heads-up. The exact numbering depends on which training method your studio uses, so a first arabesque in one system can be a different number in another. If you’re not sure, just ask your teacher which one your school follows. We break the whole shape down in our full guide to mastering the arabesque.

Arabesque penché: the dramatic one

Penché means leaning, and that’s exactly what happens. You start in an arabesque, then tip your upper body forward toward the floor while your back leg rises higher and higher behind you. Keep going and your two legs come close to a straight vertical split, one pointing at the ceiling and one at the floor.

It looks gravity-defying because it basically is. Holding a penché steady takes serious strength through your standing leg and your core, which is why it usually shows up in the big showcase moments.

Attitude: the arabesque’s bendy cousin

An attitude is almost an arabesque, with one difference: the raised leg is bent at the knee instead of straight. Picture that same lifted-leg-behind-you shape, but the leg curls into a soft hook at roughly a right angle. Rounder, gentler, a little more relaxed than the sharp line of an arabesque.

The easiest way to remember it: straight back leg is an arabesque, bent back leg is an attitude.

Attitudes come in two directions. Derrière (behind) is the classic one, with the bent leg lifted to the back. Devant (in front) puts the bent leg out ahead of you instead. Fun fact that sounds made up but isn’t: the attitude was named after a famous statue of the messenger god Mercury, who’s frozen mid-step in almost exactly this pose.

Cambré: the beautiful bend

Cambré just means arched, and it’s the pose where the bending happens in your upper body instead of your legs. Standing tall, you bend from the waist, either backward into a graceful arch or over to the side, letting your head and arms follow the curve.

You’ll see it constantly in the slow, stretchy parts of a ballet, and it’s often how a dancer melts out of one pose into the next. It’s less about balance and more about the line of your spine, so it reads as soft and expressive rather than showy.

Croisé and effacé: how a pose faces you

Here’s a subtle one that makes a huge difference. Épaulement means shouldering, and it’s the slight turn of your shoulders and head that gives a pose its angle toward the audience. The same arabesque can feel completely different depending on how you’re turned.

Two words cover most of it:

• Croisé (crossed): your body is angled so your legs appear to cross from the audience’s view. It looks tucked-in and elegant.
• Effacé (shaded, or open): your body opens out toward the audience so the line looks stretched and unobstructed.

You don’t need to memorize these to enjoy watching ballet. But once you know them, you’ll notice how a good dancer never faces you dead-on and flat. That little angle is doing a lot of quiet work.

A few more shapes you’ll spot

These aren’t full “hold it and pose” positions the way an arabesque is, but you’ll see them named all the time, so they’re worth knowing:

• B-plus (B+): a resting pose where you stand on one leg with the other foot pointed lightly behind, toe on the floor. It’s the elegant version of standing around, and dancers use it to look composed between steps.
• Sous-sus: a tight, pulled-up position where you spring onto the balls of both feet with your legs squeezed together, one right in front of the other, so it looks like one single leg. The name literally means over-under.
• Tendu: technically a movement, not a pose, but you’ll hear it nonstop. It’s when you stretch one foot along the floor until only the tip of the toe touches. Almost every bigger pose starts from a tendu.

Learning to see them

Here’s the thing about ballet poses. They look effortless on stage, but every single one is built from smaller pieces, learned slowly, flat on the floor, long before anyone goes near a spotlight or a pair of pointe shoes. The arabesque a professional holds for a breathtaking few seconds is the same arabesque a seven-year-old is figuring out at the barre this afternoon.

So next time you’re watching, play a little game. Name what you see. Straight back leg, that’s an arabesque. Bent one, attitude. Tipping forward into a split, penché. You’ll be surprised how fast it clicks, and how much more you notice once you have the words.

Want to go deeper? Our ballet terms dictionary covers the full vocabulary, and if you’re just getting your bearings, start with the eight basic body positions that every one of these poses is built on.