The leitmotif for the eight couples in the second movement is a unison adagio, with the women in the ballet position of attitude: knee bent and held high.
The choreography reflecting the music, not embellishing it avoids complicated steps; it is never overly balletic, but does make use of a basic ballet vocabulary: tendus, dégagés, arabesques, attitudes.
When Madame Mao controlled the company she prohibited foreign ballet terms: the attitude became "the stance of the heron", the arabesque became "spreading your wings in the welcome breeze".
It uses many positions and leaps derived from classical ballet, including pliés, jetés, attitudes and arabesques.
"The attitude toward ballroom dancing when I first started talking to people about it was not so different from the attitude toward ballet," she said.
MOLLY RABINOWITZ / LIQUIDGRIP Rabinowitz's choreography combines physical flexibility, complex partnering, a whimsical sensibility, and, often, an ambivalent attitude toward ballet.
If anything is "classically American," it is Robert Garland's melding of street attitude and ballet steps in a suite to the popular music of "Return".
That's a highly ambiguous attitude toward ballet — she cannot permanently reconcile dance and love — but you can see why it inspired thousands of girls to take up the art.
The choreography — reflecting the music, not embellishing it — avoids complicated steps; it is never overly balletic, but does make use of a basic ballet vocabulary: tendus, dégagés, arabesques, attitudes.
Pavlova was said to have disliked Degas's ballet pictures because he delineated attitudes, not movement.
