In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

Ula brushed her leg through and sprang forward, arms out in
front, head tilted to the side. She landed, shot back up, then drifted
down arms outstretched like wings and landing in a arabesque, her arm
outstretched towards Penny
Penny clapped uncomfortably.
"It's all about the flying. That's what Sandro says. He does
Cecchetti, the Italian method, it's choppy and showy. I do Vaganova,
the Kirov's method. It's slower but more lyrical, more like flying. But
he's always complaining about my technique, isn't that right?" Ula
swept a stray lock from his eyes. He pushed her hand away.
"I complain because you do not keep the beat. Art is about
precision first, expression later," he quipped.
Watching them dance together was a shock. They moved and
breathed as one organism, communicating through the mirror. What
unfolded in the world beyond the glass was the truth of their
relationship.
Ula gulped down half her bottle, radiating.
They did a complicated step, where he caught Ula, swept her
over his shoulder and flipped her over, her limbs rotating like the
spokes of a wheel to the ground, then he launched her up, her wings
spread out, like Nike.
He explained something in French touching her back in two
places, and asked Penny to play the passage again.
"Brisé volé again, with a partner." Ula wiped her face with the
towel.
"This is, like, a pas de deux?" Penny asked from her corner.
Ula watched for his reaction in the mirror.
"I am thinking." He paused. "A male presence too brings a
certain, em, gravitas—"
"Balls," Ula cut in, patting her sweaty scalp with the towel.
"This was your idea?" Penny asked. He nodded and walked
over to her, kneeling down in front of her, careful not to disturb the
mess of wires linking the machines.
"Ula's right. Your music it has balls. It can support a whole
company! Analog, not machines. Beating hearts! Right Ula?"
"Trial run, Sandro. Let's keep it moving."
Sandro turned up the volume and they got back to work, even
though he looked ready to keel over. Across the room, like ghosts,
translucent in the twilight.
"Could you turn it down?" Ula asked the corner.
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