Cat straightens its back while bending around its middle to its right. Cat straightens its back while bending around its middle to its left. In some moves, the body parts which carry the initial angular momentum change during the course of the turn. The diagram is based on photos in Laws' and Harvey's book. This is very curious.
Gravity is the only force acting on a dancer in mid-air.
Time in the air depends only on the vertical component of velocity, not on the dancer's mass or horizontal speed. Rotational inertia is proportional to mass x the square of the distance from the rotation axis to the outer surface of an object.