On September 11, 2001 the dancers of American Ballet Theatre were in Kansas City. They decided to perform anyway. “They begin to move. Each step they take is a step that dancers have taken for 300 years. Every step binds them to centuries of tradition and, by extension, to all the women and all the men who struggled to create what is lovely. At the close of the nation’s most dreadful day, they give us a stay against reality; in the wake of devastation they give us Order. In the wake of brutality they give us Grace. In the wake of horror they give us Beauty. In the face of senselessness they give us meaning. These wraithlike creatures are spiritual warriors. What the terrorists sought to take from our world is precisely what they return to it.”