Watching Michelle Dorrance Choreograph Tap Steps On ABT

“‘Don’t look at the mirror, look at your feet,’ Michelle Dorrance corrects. Smiling at the counterintuitive suggestion, Gillian Murphy, Devon Teuscher and Christine Shevchenko — American Ballet Theatre principals accustomed to projecting up and out to opera house balconies — look down at their pointe shoes as they shuffle into a line of tight fifth positions. As polyrhythmic strains of music fill ABT’s studios, the trio flashes through small, quicksilver position changes while Teuscher quietly counts a steady 4/4 beat that isn’t yet audible in the music.”