Brooke Desnoes was 10 or 11 when her parents sought to enroll her in the Alabama Ballet School. “Can you frog?” asked Sonia Arova, the star ballerina turned teacher. What Arova meant, in ballet parlance, was could she lie on her tummy and splay her legs like a frog, a test to see if she had the flexibility to dance. Puzzled, young Brooke crouched down like a frog and began hopping around the room. “She died laughing,” Desnoes said.