The positions of the feet in ballet is a fundamental part of classical ballet technique that defines standard placements of feet on the floor, two additional positions, known as the sixth and seventh positions, were codified in the 1930s by Serge Lifar, who was a French ballet dancer and choreographer of Ukrainian origin, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of which century?
Positions of the feet in ballet The positions of the feet in ballet is a fundamental part of classical ballet technique that defines standard placements of feet on the floor. There are five basic positions in modern-day classical ballet, known as the first through fifth positions. In 1725, dancing master Pierre Rameau credited the codification of these five positions to choreographer Pierre Beauchamp. Two additional positions, known as the sixth and seventh positions, were codified by Serge Lifar in the 1930s while serving as Ballet Master at the Paris Opéra Ballet, though their use is limited to Lifar's choreographies. The sixth and seventh positions were not Lifar's inventions, but revivals of positions that already existed in the eighteenth century, when there were ten positions of the feet in classical ballet.
Agrippina Vaganova Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova (Russian: Агриппина Яковлевна Ваганова ; 26 June 1879 – 5 November 1951) was a Russian ballet teacher who developed the Vaganova method – the technique which derived from the teaching methods of the old "Imperial Ballet School" (today the "Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet") under the "Premier Maître de Ballet" Marius Petipa throughout the mid to late 19th century, though mostly throughout the 1880s and 1890s. It was Vaganova who perfected and cultivated this form of teaching the art of classical ballet into a workable syllabus. Her "Fundamentals of the Classical Dance" (1934) remains a standard textbook for the instruction of ballet technique. Her technique is one of the most popular techniques today.