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In the prepandemic staging, Hemings would dance around Jefferson flirtatiously, performing a battement; in the new version, she still kicks her leg, but she faces away from him, arms forming a cradle as if to remind viewers of the children she bore him.

When Violet topples over while stretching her leg high in a grand battement, Weary tells her, “It is better to try our hardest and fall down than to not try at all.”

During the 90-minute class, instructor Jessica Jaye Mackinson taught us to chassé, sauté, ronde de jambe and grand battement, a fancy French word for a three-sided kick.

When we layered in battement to extend a leg parallel to the floor, my glutes protested even more.

We added more, including battement, or lifting a foot off the floor, toes pointed and still turned out.