The grand allegro is the big exciting part of ballet where all of the big fast moves are. In a ballet class, dancers will only do grand allegro work for a short period of time because it can be very tiring. Grand jetés are a big part of the grand allegro. Also known as "split jumps," they can be done either by brushing the front leg up without bending it, or by doing a developé with the front leg.You can see the dancer in a Quicktime animation doing agrand jeté with a developé.
Some other grand allegro steps include larger sissonnes and assemblés. Also, men do an assemblé en tournant. This means that as they assemble their feet in the air they spin around, sometimes several times. Another grand allegro that we quite often see is the temps de poisson. Literally translated this means "step of the fish," so named because the dancer jumps up and arches his back like a fish jumping out of the water,temps de poisson is also known as saut d'ange of "jump of an angel". An excellent example of grand allegro is in the bluebird dance from The Sleeping Beauty.
