sureness

The sureness of her jumps, her ability to captivate an audience and the exquisite quality of her edges — the technique that puts the “figure” in figure skating — make her an entrancing athlete.

He had a storyteller’s grace with a lyric, a jazzman’s sureness with a melody, and in his finest performances he delivered them with a party giver’s welcome, a palpable and infectious affability.

“His sureness in catching and his decision-making with his passing and threatening from three, it just pulls some people out so there might be some more driving opportunities,” Bennett said.

And yet Baig moves through the world with more sureness than Sabi, even as performer and character share a belief that the world may not always be welcoming.

Conductor James Gaffigan played a large part in this regenerative approach, leading the National Symphony Orchestra through Bernstein’s confounding chordal corridors with sureness and vigor, and making the composer’s sometimes dowdy patterns feel effortlessly chic.