How to Teach Expressive Movement in Ballet: Why Dynamics Matter

Technical precision is great—we love it. But dance has to be something more. Many teachers try to help students develop expressive movement by encouraging them to "feel the music" (musicality) or "show more emotion" (acting). But often the missing piece is whether or not students understand dynamics and quality of movement.

What Dynamics Actually Means

Dynamics—sometimes called quality of movement—describes how you move through space, not just where you arrive. It's the difference between sharp and smooth, heavy and light, sustained and sudden. It's the "how" that brings technique to life.

When we talk about expressive movement in ballet, we're really talking about varied dynamics. A plié executed with smooth, melting quality creates a completely different impression than a plié with sharp, rebounding energy. Same position, same movement, but entirely different artistic statement. That's the power of dynamics.

Here's where most teachers unknowingly create problems: we cue for positions rather than for quality of movement. We say "90° extension," "point your whole foot," or "dégagé has your toes off the ground." Students learn to arrive at these shapes using whatever muscles work fastest. They focus on the picture—what the step looks like when completed—rather than the process of how to move through it. And, after reviewing some of my own most common cues, I can't blame them.

The Picture vs. Process Problem

Let me give you a concrete example using dégagé, because this is a technical misunderstanding I've been fixing lately in my own teaching.

Most students think dégagé is about getting the toes off the ground. So they use their quads to lift their entire leg, creating what's essentially a thigh workout instead of the foot-strengthening work dégagé is designed for. (This also plays into why so many students struggle to understand that dégagé should be much lower than a grand battement. Since they're using the same muscles for both, beginning and elementary students will have trouble moderating their effort level and the movements end up looking the same.)

But dégagé isn't quad work. It's foot work. Specifically, it's about using the demi-point to strengthen the feet as you quickly point and create enough power to disengage from the floor. The quality of movement matters enormously: a sharp dégagé will create very different movement and technical habits than a smooth one. And changing the tempo only muddies the concept here. I know many teachers who firmly believe that dégagé must always be twice as fast as tendu but I have found that until students understand the process of a correct dégagé (including the dynamics), speeding up the movement detract from technical development. For this reason, in the Elementary Division I teach dégagé at about the same tempo as tendu. In the Intermediate Division I have students do the combination twice—first at a near-tendu tempo so they can focus on how they are moving, and then double time so they start practicing moving very quickly.

This is dynamics in action. The sharp, muscular quality of a quad-lifted dégagé looks and feels completely different from the articulated, foot-focused quality of a properly executed dégagé. One builds the wrong muscles and reinforces mechanical movement patterns. The other builds technique that serves dancers for years while simultaneously developing their sensitivity to quality of movement—the foundation of all expressive dancing.

Why Understanding Dynamics Creates Expressive Dancers

Here's the transformation that happens when you start teaching dynamics alongside technique: students stop trying to manufacture expression after they learn choreography and start moving expressively by default.

Think about it. If students spend years learning to focus only on positions—leg here, arm there, foot pointed—they're training themselves to think about static shapes. Then suddenly in rehearsal, you ask them to be expressive, to show emotion, to connect with the choreography. But you're asking them to add something on top of a foundation that was built without it.

When you teach dynamics from the beginning, expression isn't something students add later. It's built into how they learn to move. A student who understands that plié can be heavy and weighted or light and suspended already has the tools to respond to different musical qualities. A student who learns that tendu can stretch languidly or slice sharply has vocabulary for different emotional qualities. They're not trying to paste expression onto mechanical movement—they're moving expressively because that's how they learned technique in the first place.

This is particularly important because dynamics and musicality work hand in hand. Students who understand quality of movement naturally respond to music more sensitively. They hear the difference between staccato and legato not as abstract musical terms but as invitations to move with different dynamics. The technical clarity you've built becomes the foundation for artistic expression rather than a barrier to it.

How to Start Teaching Expressive Movement in Ballet Class

You don't need to overhaul your entire curriculum to start incorporating dynamics. Begin with awareness and intentional cueing in the combinations you're already teaching.

• Start with descriptive language. Instead of just saying "tendu à la seconde," try "stretch your tendu away from your ear" or "imagine your tendu is an arrow traveling to the wall." These descriptive words give students a quality to embody rather than just a position to achieve. Words like smooth, sharp, heavy, light, flowing, striking, sustained, and sudden all invite students to think about how they're moving. You'll be amazed how much more expressive a simple combination becomes when students have a quality to focus on.

• Vary dynamics intentionally within familiar exercises. Take a petit allegro exercise your students know well and have them perform it three different ways: lightly, sharply, and smoothly. Same positions, same counts, but completely different qualities of movement. This teaches students that they have choices in how they execute technique. Even more valuable, it develops their somatic awareness—they start to feel the difference between qualities of movement in their own bodies.

• Focus on process rather than picture when you correct technique. This is the most important shift. Instead of "lift your toes off the ground," try "press through your demi-point to disengage." Instead of "tendu needs a pointed foot," say "stretch away from your midline." Instead of describing where students should arrive, describe how they should move. This single change in your cueing will begin to shift students' focus from making shapes to exploring movement quality.

When students learn to pay attention to how they move through each step, they develop the sensitivity that makes expressive movement possible. They understand that technique and artistry aren't separate—they're two aspects of the same thing.

The Transformation

When you teach dynamics intentionally—not as a special addition for advanced students, but as a fundamental part of how you teach technique from the beginning—something remarkable happens. Expression isn't something you have to prod students for. It emerges naturally from dancers who understand that ballet is about quality of movement, not just correct positions.

Students who seemed "mechanical" discover they have an expressive range they never knew existed. The transformation isn't about teaching them to be more emotional or encouraging them to "perform more." It's about giving them the tools—understanding dynamics—to move expressively as a natural extension of moving well.

The expressive dancers you love to teach? They're not born that way. They're taught to pay attention to quality of movement from their very first pliés. Start with one step—maybe dégagé, maybe pirouette, maybe grand jeté—and focus on how students move through it, not just where they arrive. Describe the quality you want. Vary the dynamics intentionally. Watch what happens when students understand not just what to do, but how to do it. That's where expression lives.

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