Ballet comprises athletic performance, alongside visual and aesthetic features that are ubiquitous to all performing arts. The technical skill and quality of the dancer’s performance have long been central to the art of ballet (Fenmen, 1986; Alnıaçık, 1990). Ballet training is the systematic application of regular movements. A ballet class, whose regular movement combinations have become stereotyped and developed over the centuries, consists of three parts; bar work, center work and jumps. Ballet lessons are like ballet training. The ballet class is the dancer’s training, the preparation of his body for technical development and movement. Since ballet is a performance-based art, it requires regular and many repetitions (Alnıaçık, 1990; Gontijo, 2015; Subaygil, 2017; Evgin, 2022).

During bar and center exercises in ballet class, dancers perform a sequence of movements including plié, battement tendu, battement tendu jeté, rond de jambe, battement fondu, battement frappé, rond de jambe en l’air, petit battement, battement développé, and grand battement respectively, as documented in academic publications (Alnıaçık, 1990; Grant, 1995; Evgin, 2022). The purpose of the review study is to examine scientific publications with training content covering the academic dance movements that form the basis of ballet. It aims to make a systematic analysis of training and exercise programs that include ballet movements in the literature.

The training and practice activities used by ballet dancers to achieve their artistic performance were evaluated together with scientific publications. The study was carried out in the form of a systematic review and the databases Google Scholar, Taylor Francis, National Thesis Center, Proquest and EBSCOhost were used to obtain national and international publications. The keywords "ballet training", "ballet exercises" and "ballet movements" were identified and filtered. Full-text studies in Turkish and English were selected, and publications in other languages were not included. In order to examine current scientific studies on ballet, studies with publication years between 2001 and 2023 were preferred. Studies published before 2001 were not included.

In the analysis of the publications included in the compilation, training programs to improve ballet technique and publications on ballet training were examined in two types. Publications that improve ballet technique, publication type, subject content and training program design are detailed. The general characteristics of the participants in the scientific studies and the ballet movements included in the training and exercise programs are classified. As a result of scanning electronic databases, 113 scientific studies involving ballet were found. Following the review, it was decided to systematically analyze 64 scientific studies for the synthesis study. There are a total of 33 publications on training programs that improve ballet technique. Topic distribution of training programs that improve ballet technique; the ballet method is conditioning through stretching and mind-body connection. Publications on ballet training consist of a total of 31 scientific studies. There are five different participant distributions: ballet dancers, modern dancers, children, people with health problems and sedentary people. Ballet movements are divided into seven types of exercise: bar, middle work, port de bras, ballet stretching, ballet balance, leaps and point work. About the type of ballet exercise, it was assumed that bar and center exercises were included in all participant groups. In the publications that included ballet dancers as participants, center exercises were used most often. Of the publications that included ballet movements, 13 had plié, 11 had battement tendu, 7 had battement tendu jeté, 9 had rond de jambe, 8 had battement fondu, 6 had battement frappé, 2 had rond de jambe en l’air and 9 had battement développé. It was noted that 3 of them had petit battement movement and 9 of them had grand battement movement.

As a result of the compilation, it was seen that it is possible to use ballet movements as an exercise for modern dancers, children and adults who are healthy or have health problems. The planning of ballet movements according to the different characteristics of the participants shows that the field of ballet as a training practice is expanding. Ballet has been shown to support the physical development of participants who are not ballet dancers. The study of ballet methods makes it possible to identify movement characteristics in detail and to design training plans that are appropriate for the target group. Thus, it may be possible to select ballet movements for different training programs to improve physical fitness.