Cheat Sheet of Dance Terms for SMs

[Rebbe]

What are some dance moves/terms that SMs should know?   Any books or websites you would recommend as a reference for dance terms?

I recently worked on my first dance shows, and was able to call and follow the show based on what I heard, or my own description of specific moves, but I was thinking it might be useful in the future to know the difference between a jete and sahshay…and probably how to spell  them, too!   

[Maribeth]

I am in no way a dance expert. All of this is what I have picked up in my own experience- SMing dance and taking dance classes (which I highly recommend, in terms of improving dance vocabulary).

There are some good articles on Wikipedia relating to dance terms:
Ballet Glossary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_ballet
In case you're not only doing ballet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_dance_moves 
A "Video Dictionary" of ballet terms:  http://www.abt.org/education/dictionary/index.html

Depending on what kind of dance you're working on, some companies/styles of dance may have a vocabulary of their own. Modern dance has slightly different positions of the feet than ballet. Oftentimes I will ask someone in the company what a particular move or step is called.

The different ways that dancers describe movement are incredibly useful - in ballet, a turn can be described as "en dedans" or "en dehors"- basically inside and outside turns, and sometimes dancers will talk about "homolateral movement" vs "contralateral movement"- homolateral has you using the same arm as leg (e.g. right arm with right leg), while contralateral uses opposite arm and leg (right arm with left leg).

I will also write things down in a hurry and make up descriptions for things I don't know, and fix them later. Or draw a picture. What kind of dance were you doing?

[centaura]

Oh, too bad I'm at work - at home I had at one point picked up a book on dance terms, but its been so long since I've looked at it that I can't recall its name.  I think it might have been a USITT publication - I seem to recall picking it up at a conference.  Sorry that that's not specific, I'll try to remember when I go home tonight to look for it to get the title.

-Centaura