Ballet Term
Cinq
Cinq is common term in ballet meaning “five.” Cinq is simply a direct translation meaning “five.” It is used in conjunction with other terms such as pas de cinq, meaning a dance for five ballet dancers.
Cinq is simply the French word for “five,” and in ballet it appears inside longer step and dance names rather than on its own. The most common place you will meet it is pas de cinq, which means a dance for five dancers. Learning that cinq means five makes these names easy to decode: once you know the number words, you can often tell how many dancers a section is written for just from its title. For example, a pas de deux is for two and a pas de cinq is for five.