A person is either confident and competent in languages/humanities or more scientifically oriented. This is a common misconception that may lead some to believe that ballet is a pure art form  and there is no science behind trying a grand jeté en tournant.

One of  the most important physics principles in ballet is conservation of angular momentum. Let’s have a look at the grand jeté. Once the dancer leaves the floor, their centre of gravity follows a fixed parabola. In order to change that parabola, other parts of the body need to move. To best make use of the centre of gravity’s vertical motion, the dancer can open the legs at the top of the arc and then close them again when going down. In that moment, the head and torso can actually move horizontally, giving us a spectacular image of a seemingly floating dancer.

Of course, here we only explored one ballet move, and though it seems like magic, it’s actually physics in action!