From the audience she looks rock-solid, balancing en pointe in arabesque after a series of precariously difficult one-armed promenades with her partner. But from the wings, just a few feet away, we see the edges of her tutu quivering. The effect of vulnerability is both true and misleading, since her strength is real, but the intensity of her effort is too. Every single fiber of every muscle in her body is engaged—not stiffly rigid, but called into play with calculated, modulated precision. Up close, a nearby watcher can see the constant recalibration required to maintain her arabesque, and even lift it higher and higher when human nature would tell it to droop. The determination reverberates to the edges of tulle spanning out from the basque of her tutu. Her effort has been overtaken by some power she did not have when she woke up that morning. Yes, the physicality of her poses and movements is human. They are HER legs, arms, torso, neck, fingertips. But the surge that fuels them comes from somewhere else. She's calculating every split-second maneuver, but there is also an unseen manipulator—an internal god, maybe?—who guides and powers her to the end. It's electrifying for both dancer and audience—when the promenade is at its ultimate climax, as the ballerina releases her partner's hand for an impossibly long balance alone, on one pointe, leg at a full 90 degree arabesque—some man from the back of the house ROARS, and the rest of the crowd erupts in turn —she is jolted, startled, shocked and stunned with realization: There are people out there! And, they like what I just did? But it's not over—there is a lift, a pirouette, a toss in the air and a fish dive to finish, the audience's thunder nearly drowning out the music. As her partner lifts her with compassionate strength (he's on fire from the response as well), gently placing her en pointe in a piqué arabesque and sweeping her into their agreed-upon pose for their bow, she gives him a secret “oh my God” look. (Recovering from the lift brings them into a momentary embrace, their faces inches apart, giving them a second of privacy in front of 1,000 people). They move to center stage with a shared glee, disbelief, and gratitude. They bow for each other more than for the audience. And then, as she exits stage left, he walks upstage alone, takes a deep, deep breath—and then another—to begin his coda. It's not over.