The Body Beautiful, in Slow Motion.

We say we are dancers.

We blast Swan Lake, don our tutus—Opal’s is a real tutu, mine a scarf wrapped around my mid-section—and away we go. We twirl, we jump, we sway, we kick. In the confines of our living room, we rule the dance floor. It matters not that Opal is a ballet-class dropout. It matters not that my left knee crunches like a bag of potato chips with every squat.

“Look at this new move, Mom!” Opal says, doing a jump-turn-thing that required 110% of her focus, which registering in the pursed expression on her face.

“Nice one!” I say, “Show me how you did that!”

However, in the larger land of dance and movement, where professional dancers reach a level of body-mastery that is akin to godliness, the rules tremor with a different intensity.

In this video from The Washington Post, several members of the Washington Ballet demonstrate their most challenging moves. The points of peak action are filmed in slow motion, showing these dancers to be the extraordinary, exquisite marvels of nature that they are.

Show me how you did that, indeed.

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Sugianto Suparman at Pixoto