Contemporary vs. Classical Ballet: A Glossary
If you're arriving here from the classical repertoire, some of the vocabulary on this site will look unfamiliar even though the dancers are often trained the same way. Here's a plain-language guide to the terms that come up most.
Pointe Work vs. Bare Feet
Classical ballet built much of its vocabulary around pointe shoes, which let dancers balance and turn on the very tips of their toes. Contemporary choreographers often keep pointe work (Forsythe, McGregor) but just as often abandon it for bare or socked feet, which allow more contact with the floor and a different quality of weight and fall.
Floorwork
Classical ballet technique is built to stay upright and vertical. Contemporary choreography routinely sends dancers to the floor — rolling, sliding, and recovering — treating the ground as a working surface rather than something to be avoided.
Release Technique
A family of contemporary dance training methods, developed from modern dance pioneers including Merce Cunningham and José Limón, that emphasizes using gravity, breath, and momentum to move the body rather than holding it in fixed classical alignment.
Contact Improvisation
A dance form developed in the early 1970s, largely credited to American choreographer Steve Paxton, built around two or more bodies sharing weight and momentum in real time. Its influence shows up across contemporary ballet in partnering that looks unplanned, off-balance, or physically risky compared to classical pas de deux.
Deconstructed Vocabulary
A term closely associated with William Forsythe, describing choreography that takes apart classical steps — their geometry, timing, and alignment — and reassembles them in ways that push past traditional technique while remaining recognizably built from it.
Gaga Movement Language
A movement practice developed by choreographer Ohad Naharin at Batsheva Dance Company, focused on internal sensation rather than mirrors or fixed steps. Unlike most techniques associated with a single company, Gaga is also taught publicly as a general-audience class format.
Physical Theatre / Tanztheater
An approach, pioneered by Pina Bausch, that treats spoken text, everyday gesture, and theatrical staging as choreographic material alongside — or instead of — formal dance steps.
Neoclassical Fusion
Choreography that keeps classical ballet's core vocabulary — pointe work, extension, turnout — largely intact while updating its musical, narrative, or collaborative context, as seen in companies like Alonzo King LINES Ballet.
None of these categories are strict — most contemporary ballet choreographers move between several of them within a single work, and many of today's most prominent names trained classically before developing a contemporary voice. If you came here from the classical repertoire, the Choreographers and Companies sections are a good next stop.