Catastrophe – or at least scrambled eggs – is only a misjudged shift of weight or a mistimed balance away.
Ms. Gillis's spins and circles are not as simple as they look, involving considerable shift of weight.
And then her first slow shift of weight as she moves across the stage becomes a striking demonstration of autonomy.
Then along comes another performer in another work, and the merest detail — a step, a shift of weight — becomes galvanizing, intoxicating.
Every shift of weight, every darting glance, every hummingbirdlike flourish of the hands furthered the conversation she seemed to be having, with its shades of yearning, anger, surprise.
The more basic lovelinesses of Odissi style, however, often shone through: the wonderfully sensuous shift of weight through the pelvis and shoulders and the marvelous focus of the eyes (sometimes looking under a raised arm).
A sophisticated horse, used to the delicate physical language of an expert rider, expects a shift of weight in the saddle and slight pressure from a leg to mean something.
Against a background of pure colour and song, the tale begins with a shoal of dancers and peaks as one character, the Messenger, communicates with a spotlit, upturned palm and a slight shift of weight.
Many of their films, "Ocean" not least, beautifully capture exceptional dancers in extraordinary choreography; Mr. Atlas's early Cunningham film "Walkaround Time" (1973) includes a serene solo for the great Carolyn Brown where her calmness in slowly raising and lowering an extended leg with no apparent shift of weight becomes one of the most mesmerizing spectacles in dance history.
But her deliberation -- how one foot glides around the other, the smooth shift of weight, her head steady and light on her spine like a flower on a stem -- stops the coffee shop traffic, refocuses everything around.
