M O T I O N

Logline: The lives of contemporary dancers, the pursuit of things just out of reach.

When I was young I learned that our understanding of color is not universal and that there is no real way to confirm if my blue is the same as your blue. For all I know my blue could be your green and your red my purple and so on. What essentially stops us from being able to verify this is our methods of corroboration. It turns out the only way I can begin to define what my blue is through acts of comparison, I would say “look at that sky, it’s blue, right?” To which you would say, “what are you, stupid?” And you would be right because of course it’s blue, that’s what we both learned. More interestingly though is not the disconnect at play but rather the implication that lies within this act of seemingly necessary juxtaposition between one’s self and another’s self, for without You, there would be no blue, it would just Be. So, at least as it relates to the Human modality of understanding, We are the creators of a fundamental binary. And whether that binary is manifested through Me and You, life and death, light and dark, existence or non-existence, one simply cannot be without an other, even if the other is non-being.

At this point you might be thinking, “hey, ain’t all a bit much for what’s s’posed to be some kind of tv progrum?” And that is a fair point but allow me to offer a counterpoint of my own: not only is it this binary, this fundamental duality, that lies at the core of this particular half-hour television progrum but I can actually also name this page whatever I want and since I’ve named it “Abstract” this entire thought is exactly where it’s s’posed to be. So I reckon that there’s whats referred to as a fuckin’ checkmate, partner. Doesn’t chess seem downright unfair when a player gets to play both sides of the board? Yeah, me neither.

Anyways, while I’ve successfully justified the placement of these abstract ideas, even I must admit that that still isn’t enough. For an idea, any idea, as thoughtful as it might be, is still just an idea, formless, nebulous and, therefore, basically useless. So enter our dual protagonists, Sena and Quinn, the vessels of story who through their very life provide shape to this duality. But while these two hands are meant to embody nothing less than Yin and Yang (respectively) it is, again, through their life that we are able to explore these ideas. So, this all to say that Sena and Quinn are, first and foremost, Human. And it is through the multi-faceted nature of their humanity that they will also cast light onto the duality found at other levels, be it head and heart, order and chaos, truth and illusion or even fun things like rock and roll, comedy and drama, peanut butter and jelly, the sense of isolation felt within Eastern collectivism and the almost aching restlessness likewise present in Western individualism, etc.

Physically, Sena and Quinn are professional dancers employed by a Chicago-based contemporary rep company, but extending beyond that, they are denizens of an arguably larger world, the world of dance. A space that exists outside of any map but can still be found somewhere between a stadium and a church. It is the nature of this world that dictates the form of the series. Which is to say, that MOTION is a sports story by way of music video (this latter aspect will be very much defined in the section titled “Space”). And as it has been illustrated by the great sports stories of our time, so too will this piece take a page from their books by focusing less on the sport and more on the pursuit. There will be no lengthy discussions of technical minutiae or arcs spent learning some kind of move or technique, rather how one feels in relation to dance, and therefore life itself will largely be what decides their success or failure in the face of a given challenge.

While the meanings and arguments found within this show are intended to be numerous (after all, isn’t one of the greatest strengths of episodic storytelling its latitude?), when whittled down to its most bare essence, the concept of pursuit, and therefore MOTION, is nothing more or less than a story of love. Ultimately, this is an exploration of people and not only the forms that their love can take (i.e., Eros, Storge, Mania, fear, etc.) but also the juxtaposition of that love in relation to the object of its desire. And while the exploration of that relationship will be what yields the discoveries of innate Human meaning invariably contained within, it is through the examination of the connection’s very existence where we aim to illustrate that while there are always two sides, there is only ever one perfectly balanced coin.

Now, while prolonged discussions of the abstract are fun and all, a diet of just ideas is still starvation so, and with no small degree of personal relief, I say we move on to something with a little more protein in…