Every step has been rehearsed. None of the rehearsal shows.
There is a version of this story where the dancer is destroyed by the dance, where the pursuit of the perfect line quietly eats the person attempting it. That is not what happened here. She arrived at the top of the discipline and found, instead of a cliff, a room she could live in.
She dances on the sand with the cloth as her partner and the wind keeping time.
The applause is welcome. People travelled to give it and she would not insult them by refusing it. But she has not needed it for a long time. The dance is the point. Someone decided that long ago, and she agreed.