What do these ballet terms mean?

[Solor]

What does "Danse d'Ecole" (spelling?) mean? How do you pronounce it?

What about "Grand Defile"? What does it mean? Hows' it pronounced?

"Pas d'action"? I know what it means but I have no idea of the correct pronounciation.

What about "Grand Ballabile"? What does this mean?

Geez, youd think after ballet training since the age of 8 and company dancing Id know these words by now.

[Marga]

I only have time to explain one of them, Solor: Grand Défilé

The "a" in "grand" is pronounced "aah", with a silent "d", which becomes heard at the beginning of "défilé", of course. "Défilé" is pronounced "day-fee-lay".

A défilé is, in basic terms, a row of people, a procession, a parade of sorts.

The "grand" part makes it especially fancy, I think. "Grand" means "big" in French.

In ballet, the grand défilé exhibits all the performers of the evening at the very end of the show (usually after the bows) each doing, in turn, a showy bit of dancing.

[Hans]

Danse d'école: Dans day-KOHL

Gail Grant says: "Dance of the school. The classical style. See Ballet d'école."

The entry for Ballet d'école says: "Ballet of the school. The academic dance based on the turn-out and the five positions of the feet."

In other words, it seems to pretty much mean "ballet," but more along the lines of what you'd see in a classroom rather than onstage.

Pas d'action: Pah dack-syAWN (it looks so ungraceful when written phonetically!)

Grand Ballabile: Grahn Bahl-LAH-bee-lay

Gail Grant only lists "Ballabile": "(Italian). 'Danceable.' From the Italian ballare, to dance. A dance for a group or corps de ballet without solos."

[rg]

speaking informally, my reading/usage of 'danse d'ecole' is to distinguish a dance, a choreographic work, that uses 'ballet's academic/classical vocabulary' as opposed to one that utilizes more 'personal' ways of working, such as those associated w/ so-called 'modern dance' or so-called 'contemporary dance.'

the ashtons and balanchines fall into this category; the duatos, kylians, etc. do not.

pas d'action was coined, more or less, to distinguish those dances, often pas de deux (or pas de deux a trois) that somehow carry forward and/or elaborate the ballet narrative/plot, as opposed to being given as sheer divertissement.

ballabile is more or less as g. grant suggests a group dance w/o a focus on solo dancer(s), the dance of the revelers in balanchine's HARLEQUINADE qualifies, as does the original VALSE DES FLEURS and VALSE DES FLACONS DE NEIGE in NUTCRACKER - balanchine's VALSE DES FLEURS is probably disqualified b/c his waltz ensemble is more or less a grand framework for the DewDrop soloist.

defile is a kind of presentational parade or cortege of a full cast of characters, or member of the group of dancers performing at given time - more formal and large-scale defiles are are 'grand'.

[socalgal]

According to my very old and dog-eared Dance Encyclopedia by Chujoy and Manchester:

Pas d'Action

quote

".....a pantomime scene inserted into the ballet between dances for the purpose of furthering the plot. Excellent examples of pas d'action are to be found in "Giselle" (particularly Act 1), "La Fille Mal Gardee" and "Coppelia". In the Russian Imperial Theatre pas d'action had a different meaning. It was a dance scene which helped to develop the plot, to move the action. A brilliant example is the so-called Rose Adagio of "The Sleeping Beauty" (Act 1) when Princess Aurora is being wooed by the four exotic Princes on her sixteenth birthday. The original libretto of 1890 labeled the scene Grand Pas d'Action. The pas de deux in what is now called Act 3 of "Swan Lake" (the so-called Black Swan pas de deux), also carried the appelliation of Pas d'Action, according to the original program of the Maryinsky Theatre."