K, with her flexile frame, indicates the dimensions of the space she stands in. She illuminates the possible not merely through doing — doing is flat in comparison with the rush of symmetries and perspectives she passes sedately through in promenade (a slow revolving balance on one foot). She is the opposite of a rhythmic gymnast.

K reduces technique to a series of Xs that ripple through her body, cross-body oppositions, this shoulder-that foot, creating a lateral web through which she occasionally plunges. But only occasionally. K’s main flaw (and it’s an interesting one) is an absence of engagement. She looks perpetually dreamy, despite the rigorous action of her body — a sleepwalker. In her laziness runs an undercurrent of bemusement: in croisé arabesque (at an angle to the viewer, with far leg lifted) the X’s curl, the toes of her lifted foot launching an arc that lightly lands at the slight backward tilt of her head. Little bits of her flutter and tremble: her foot in arabesque, her pointy shoulderblades. Her leg in second (to the side) flies up somewhere, unsecured, unlocated. It’s hard to find her in the rules. If D dances like a believer, K dances like an apostate. Her limbs illustrate limbo, the tracklessness of space. She might be playing a joke on ballet.

This type of description that I’m practicing doesn’t preclude comments on skill, body, or musical know-how. All that is valuable, so long as it’s unified by the apprehension of a moving artist. This type of description also doesn’t preclude criticism.

M has a gymnastic body: flat torso, narrow hips, deep thighs. If she sways, she sways forward in her spine, not side to side in her hips like most women. The place where her thighs join her pelvis shows the serious architecture of a suspension bridge — cables, bolts, anchors. And there is an architectural look about her: her arabesque suggests a rampart or a flying buttress. It looks permanent when she steps into it, though she’ll abandon it a moment later. Her grand battement in second (high kick to the side) flies out like a compass, and even when her leg nearly reaches her ear, her kick remains fierce, her foot clawing.

Watching them, we are aware, sometimes poignantly, of the fragility of humans, the weakness of our attempts to transcend.

M’s tremendous strength changes her relationship to gravity. Most exhale downward, collapsing toward the floor on impact. Watching them, we are aware, sometimes poignantly, of the fragility of humans, the weakness of our attempts to transcend. But M creates her own solar system. Her arms never cave in toward her ribs; they have their own orbit. Sometimes she jumps again out of the air.

(I’m not succeeding; in all this, I’ve lost her art.)

Other dancers in the room — one announces “dead again” each time her feet close in fifth position. Another is emotionally engaged in the music, but her dancing doesn’t reach to her extremities; the feet are an approximation. “I’ll just put it here,” one says, casting up an arbitrary leg. “Can I fake this?” another asks, hanging back in her hips.

N is M’s opposite — delicate, girlish. Instead of M’s rigorous internal system, N gives us an elaborate demonstration of disconnection, non-physics. How her foot turns out at that angle in fifth I can’t tell, since it flops back to a more normal shape as soon as she lifts it from the floor. N is attached to the mirror; she needs to see herself in a shape to know that it’s happened. This slows her down. In contrast, M happens: she rapidly builds and demolishes her positions. Even if we like them, they’re not what she’s after. Is she seeking platonic solids?