On the cover of both of these two books are photographs of women in loose white pants—arms extended, wrists twisted, each wearing concentrated facial expressions; both seen from front and back as if doubling in a mirror. Perhaps suggested by the reaching gesture, the bodies seem to implore the viewer. It is as if movement is held out and yet in abeyance, incomplete within the image, thus awaiting further fulfillment and explanation. As with the images, both books grapple with the conundrum of how movement communicates to a viewer, and how feelings might be evoked, whether kinesthetically or choreographically. Similar but different—one more historical, the other more fragmented—they also address the timely question of empathy in creative practice.