“We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.”
– Martha Graham
“It’s too early for whatever this is.”
– Bailey
While Motion is ultimately a story being driven by the Bodies, in Energy we will deconstruct the vehicle’s engine and identify some of it’s key components, seeking to understand the source of its fuel and the means of its combustion.
the distance between SENA AND QUINN
As the pilot illustrates, it is clear that a vast, unseen void lies between our two protagonists and while there are hints of what lies at its root, its genesis remains unclear. As we progress through our first season and Sena and Quinn continue to face the difficulties of their precarious professional positions, we will excavate the major notes of their history and then juxtapose those discoveries against these current challenges, illuminating how the challenges they clash against are not just professional in nature but also, deeply personal. However, while this mystery is a source of propulsion, it is only a finite one that expires as soon as its answer is revealed.
By the end of our first season, this distance will be shortened dramatically and ultimately give way to the beginning of a flowing period of their relationship, which we will come to see in the next season. However, as the series progresses onwards into subsequent seasons, their relationship will undergo additional periods of ebbing and then, once again, flowing. It will be this constant Motion of distance, this constant cycle of separation and close-ness that will allow us to capture the truth that, while you can be as close to someone as you can possibly be, there are still constant reminders of the separation between the two. Ultimately, theirs will be a tragedy with a happy ending.
As we progress through series, we will find that the actual engine of this relationship is the Motion within the very distance itself.
Eventually, this distance will be confronted and the gap will be shortened over the seasons, but it will never be gone. It will be this distance itself, this relationship challenged by the individual and evolving desires of those within it, that will not just serve as a source of tension throughout the entirety of the series, but also function as one of the fundamental questions that lies at its root. As they each evolve (or devolve) and gain new insights and perspectives, they will not just keep the other in the back of their mind, but by nature of their environment and the love they share for each other, they will constantly be forced to confront each other and therefore themselves, again and again and again, in auditions, pas de deuxs, classes, quiet moments in the hallway.
Their relationship is destined to be constantly plagued by the tiny misunderstandings that lead to hurt, distance, and disappointment. And even when they learn to resolve that, and the timing becomes right for one, it will not be right for the other and then when the timing becomes right for the other, it will no longer be right for the one.
However, it will not always be marred by tragedy, there will be instances of quiet victory as well; rare moments of cathartic and deep connection where, even if with the bittersweet awareness that it cannot be forever, for a brief moment they are finally able to enjoy being on the same page as the other.
Theirs is a unique relationship derived from a longstanding history and so, naturally, their love is a complex thing. On the surface, it might take the shape of a yearning “will they won’t they,” on other levels, their communication can be seen as a Shakespearean comedy of errors or an eternal tragedy that illustrates the fact that, even when you are the closest you have ever been to someone, there will always be differences, no matter how small, that separate you from the other.
As children, Sena and Quinn grew up in different neighborhoods within the wider Chicago area and so they each attended different schools, at least for math, English, and general education. The classroom they did first share, however, was a small dance studio for children’s ballet.
As all children tend to be in new environments, the class of ten was shy around the other but it wasn’t before long that Quinn became the first to emerge out of her shell. And by also having taken to ballet as a natural, the other children couldn’t help but look up to her and, unsurprisingly, she was thrust into the role of a class ringleader, a role she was also naturally fit for. However, as time went on and the social scene began to take on further definition, it was apparent that one child seemed to always be on the outskirts, the quiet and shy Sena. And as some people tend to be, they didn’t like what they didn’t understand. So it was that Sena’s position as an outsider was used against her as the binding agent for a smaller split social faction. What started first as small rolling eyes, this group of three grew more comfortable with cutting words after practice, and then tiny acts of exclusion within practice. Quinn, finally witnessing one such act and being an idealist since birth, was incensed and rushed to protect the bullied girl and, through her protection, the trio left Sena relatively alone. Quinn initially thought of Sena as her ward then, as Sena continued to remain relatively non-verbal, as a burden. Over time, the renegade faction used Quinn’s protective nature against her as a platform to chip away at her standing with the others and their power within the class of ten grew. It wasn’t until after Quinn accidentally witnessed an act of methodical, silent retaliation to the bullies from Sena, that Quinn realized she didn’t need to be protected. Who she once thought as a source of weight became a source of fascination, and not long after, a source of genuine delight and love.
As they grew, they continued to dance, Quinn with a pure and ever childlike love and Sena with a complex passion marred by the forces of parental pressure. Either way, they each became the best dancers of their class and so, they were the ones earmarked for further investment. At 16, with the help of a scholarship for Quinn, they were both sent off to a summer program at one of America’s best dance schools, Jacob’s Pillow (a real place, I didn’t choose the name). There, they were exposed to yet another layer of a larger world. To Sena, it was scary, the people there were intense and she found herself once again at the bottom of something. To Quinn, it was strangely comforting, here were these people just as passionate and, in some cases, equally as talented as she was. As the program wore on for the summer, Quinn grew more and more annoyed with what she perceived to be Sena’s reliance on her and, for the first time, Quinn drifted away.
This drift, while not necessarily a full break, still was a distance that remained long after they returned from that summer. And, as college came around, this distance took on a literal physical space with Sena attending Ailey Fordham and Quinn taking on Juilliard.
However, as we know, they were always meant to come back to each other and so they did. As they graduated and auditioned for various companies, they each placed a special emphasis on Wolf Street, for Sena it was the company closest to home and for Quinn, it was Wolf Street’s production of Lyra’s “Tempestuous” inspired her to take that first ballet class all those years ago and since then she’d always harbored the dream of one day conquering it. It also didn’t hurt that Wolf Street was considered to be one of the best contemporary dance companies in America, at least at one point.
So they found each other again one audition day and re-introduced themselves. Quinn marveled at the way Sena had changed from the shy, somewhat insecure person she once was and Sena was fascinated by the way Quinn hadn’t seemed to have changed at all. By the time they were both accepted into Wolf Street, their friendship was already stronger and more intimate than it had ever been. Supported by the foundations of their childhood friendship, they each reveled in their newfound appreciation of the other through the more complex adult lens, they respected the other as athletes, artists, and competitors, they liked the other as friends, and, slowly, they began to love the other as something more.
However, they were not yet adults but young adults. As a result they were confused and wondering about who they were, who they wanted to be, not just to each other, but to themselves. As dancers. As people. And while it was the sharing of this confusion that somehow made their relationship even stronger, it was also this confusion that prevented them from taking the steps necessary to confront and explore these new feelings about each other in a direct way. After all, how could they know that what they were feeling for each other was real while they were stuck trying to figure out what they were feeling about themselves? And so, Sena, scared to lose the friendship and Quinn, scared to lose something in herself, danced around this feeling for years. It wasn’t until one night at some party, when Quinn witnessed Sena being wooed away by someone else that, emboldened by one too many shots of Malibu and already impulsive by nature, she took Sena by the hand and they left the party. That night, for the first time, they acted upon their feelings in the way that dancers do best, with their body language.
And so, they entered yet another arc of their relationship. Sena having realized early into her Wolf Street career that this is what she wanted, was happy to simply be with Quinn in this way and Quinn shared in that feeling, at least at first. As time beats ever onwards it also eventually leads one back. For Quinn, the only thing that seemed to change was Sena’s increasing reliance on her and, as she grew increasingly frustrated with her attempts in becoming the undeniable best at Wolf Street, the seeds of a deep fear began to take root within her. As these seeds grew into a plant and this plant began to bear its bitter fruit, Quinn came to once again resent Sena’s increased attachment, both blaming it for her own failure and also silently resenting Sena’s own status as a competitor. It was when Sena tried to help Quinn by talking her through a piece of choreography that Quinn shattered. It wasn’t a big fight but it was a fight and in its wake she used the dust as cover to ran away and so it was, again, that they drifted apart.
Over the course of the next few months, and wallowing in her own shame, Quinn detached more and more from Sena. Distancing herself as best she could despite the close proximity of their work and becoming a worse dancer all the while. Sena tried to salvage it, despite her own ineptitude, she nobly struggled to write texts, letters, at one point she even asked Quinn outright. However, it takes two to tango and so while Sena tried her best, she was left alone on the dance floor with each attempt. It was not long after this rift that her brother died and her loneliness grew. It is not long after his death, about two months to be exact, that we meet our characters for the first time.
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THE repertory
As the first season will focus largely on Sena, Quinn, and other core Movers, the repertoire of Wolf Street will function as much of the protein behind the day-to-day challenges faced by the dancers. But let it never be forgotten that how a thing is said is just as important as what one is saying and so, Motion’s narrative will approach these pieces of choreography as opportunities to catalyze the characters, presenting an emphatic focus on the thematic exploration of a piece as opposed to any potential technical obstacles of a given phrase of choreography. If a piece of choreography demands the performer fall and they find themselves unable to, we will focus on the nature of fear and letting go before we ever come close to discussing that a fall is best done with the thighs flexing to soften the fall which would then allow you to pivot into the next position where you need to raise your- and so on and so forth. Furthermore, given the contemporary nature of the company, the influences and work staged at Wolf Street will have the added benefit of not only being hyper-specific but intensely cross-cultural. Whether it’s understanding trance mentality through a piece influenced by a Detroit warehouse dance style or a modern interpretation of a classic Russian ballet, the potential avenues of thematic exploration are inherently limitless.
However, that is not to say all of the work performed will happen strictly within the walls of Wolf Street. Occasionally, throughout our first season (and with increasing regularity across each subsequent one), episodes will venture forth and out into the world to explore dance in the other venues in which it occurs, from the most vivacious productions of an Indian wedding to the private stage of one’s apartment as the night wears on and a quiet feeling begins to settle. These instances and the resulting arcs will provide us the space necessary to not just perform targeted personal character explorations but, through the inevitable return to the competitive realities of Wolf Street, allow us to further illustrate all of the ways in which dance is more than just a profession or even simple action.
the games
Whether its by a single person, equipped with a smooth, flat stone and a desire to break their personal record of number of skips across a pond or an oozing pile of politicians trying to score points with their base by hitting the right buzzwords in a debate, individual or collective, physical or invisible, wherever there are people, there is desire and where there is desire there is a Game to be played.
While the Wikipedia page to behavioral game theory explains this concept more efficiently but in its own flavorless way, as a narrative, Motion aims to show the concept of Game and it’s broader aspects by embodying it on a number of levels. On the most broad architectural level, Motion will explore a specific, unique perspective and accompanying style of game with each season, thus evolving our own understandings of game to “Game” in much the same way that The Wire was able to. On a more retracted level, Game will manifest, through a series of constant competitions, some being contained by a singular episode while others will span across a larger arc or season. On an even smaller scale still, the immediate narrative lens of Motion will focus on some of the core aspects to Game, identifying the nature of the specific game at hand as well as who is playing, how it is they are playing it, and what it is they are playing for- ultimately presenting not just the psychological profiles of a given competitor but rather what it is they each philosophically embody as they pursue what it is they desire.
However, as a bullet without a gun or a punchline without a joke, it is important to remember that these illustrations of Game only achieve thematic meaning when utilized in concert with the concepts of victory and less.
where STADIUM meets CHURCH – the game of dance & the realizations of the “state”
While there are no immediately defined rules or points system to the game of dance there is still a simple truth to the fact that, in a room full of people auditioning for the role of Carmen, only one can ostensibly “win.” So, in the face of a challenge such as this, how does one achieve that victory? Do they click their castanets the loudest, the most on time? Do they execute the choreography perfectly and down to the second? Do they wear an outfit that is just red enough so the person casting it can’t help but subconsciously associate you with Carmen a little more than they normally would? While these approaches do contain their own varying degrees of validity, they are misdirections, emphases placed upon the smaller aspects of what is ultimately a larger and more singular objective.
There is a certain kind of elasticity of reality that permeates Motion’s pilot, from fingers flickering under dull bathroom lighting to mirrors reflecting images of self-immolation. These moments are part of a developed system of surreality (henceforth known as the “State”) that seek to not just represent that objective or the emotional realities found within a character, but rather illustrate the abstract truths found within dance as a Game being played at it’s highest level. The State is nothing less than what separates a good performance from a great one, it is the very line of being that, when crossed, results in a nameless auditioner becoming Carmen, with all of her passion and all of her fire and, through it’s depth and intensity of manifestation will Motion be able to directly present the game of dance without needing to say a single word about rules or points.
Although the pilot was designed to carefully present all of the rules to the State, Headache is Motion’s bible and what is a bible without a good ol’ fashioned set of commandments.
- The State is always in line and derived from character truth, strongest in the wake of character epiphany and weakest in moments of character stagnation.
- By the State’s depth is the performance great, by it’s consistency is the dancer great.
- The Movers strive to attain the State, the Shakers seek to harness it. In one form or another, all in Motion are caught in its pursuit.
- All can observe the State, but never explain or define exactly what it is they saw outside of the body moving within.
- The State is objective. One can say the sun is not bright but still feel the need to shield their eyes against it.
- The State can be attained but that does not mean one is guaranteed victory over their respective challenge.
- Each dancer’s relationship to the State is their own. Over time, we will be able to witness recurring motifs, elements, and effects specific to the dancer.
- A singular instance of the State will never exceed two minutes unless used within the context of a larger dream sequence.
- The State is kin to the musical but only kin. There will be no singing or innocuous bystanders bursting into choreography. If the mailman starts doing a professional-level tap dance for no reason he will be hit by a bus two steps into his routine.
- In it’s most bare essence, the State is a competition set against the self.
Functioning as the main game to Motion’s first season as well as acting as a spinal component to the series at large, the silent exploration and unified narrative focus of the State will be the very element that not only allows us to witness the hidden inner selves of a given character but also provide our audience with a more individualized and active viewing experience. Some may wish to be judges of the implications and meanings of a given manifestation, the silence may inspire some to solve the implied mystery of it’s system, others might be simply content to witness the general spectacle of it all. Regardless, whether it is to catalyze a character within or engage the audience without, the general importance of the State to Motion is fundamental and cannot be emphasized enough.
THE silent STORY OF THE INSTITUTION
As the bean counters forecast the rapid financial decline of Wolf Street there is a pressure that manifests for all within the company. For the Corps, this pressure takes on shape as they look up. Above them, they now notice an axe, poised to fall on the weakest among them at the slightest misstep. For our political leaders, our Shakers, this fear manifests as they look down to find they are walking a tightrope suspended high up into the air, the slightest errant breeze threatening a Hephaestian fall from the heavens. As it can’t be denied that they were the ones who were supposed to look out for the company, their fear is of a more complete nature. For Wolf Street to be in such a state is an irrefutable indictment of their own leadership abilities.
While some of them have tried to hide behind the narratives of Covid or larger economic recession, as they face the bar graph that shows them the decade long trajectory of decline exposes these narratives as small and empty things. It is in the latest fiscal year when they notice the beginnings of a nosedive and if they don’t pull themselves up Wolf Street will die and take their professional careers out with it. The predicament they face is not so simple as a storm to be weathered but the beginnings of a final ice age and to survive they are going to need to do nothing less than change the weather. However, as each of our leaders have a particular belief about how to handle this crisis, here is where the Game of politics and strategy come into play.
Financially, the Game here has been seen a million times before: do more with less, cut costs while hyper-driving the generation of capital. So the financial leaders play this Game, they drop axes on the heads of those in the Corps considered most unessential, they consider subletting space, they strategize with the board, they go out into dinners and events in the hopes of rainmaking. However, while capital is the blood that runs through the veins of any good ol’ fashioned American institution, it is not necessarily the heart. That heart, that vital organ is the product that the institution sells.
Here now is the time to quickly point out that Wolf Street and dance companies at large embody a tragically rare kind of American institution, the non-profit. So while they spiritually still share the same heart of product, the product of a non-profit is a fundamentally more intangible one. As Peter Drucker says in his book Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices, ‘“The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their “product” is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.”’ So this is all to say that the heart responsible for pumping the blood of Wolf Street is the dance, the creative and so, here at Wolf Street, it is the creative who has committed the most egregious failure and thus is the branch of leadership that needs to take the largest corrective action.
So the creative plays their half to the Game of politick. They strive to connect more with audiences, foster community relationships, get their name back out into the world and have it mean something again. They need to be better.
As our focus will be on the Corps
As it pertains to the first season and our focus being on those within the Corps, this political aspect of the Game will be told in relative silence but shown loudly and consistently throughout. The pilot exemplifies this approach through, characters reconciling the aftermath of the first fallen axe or the witnessing of muted office conversation from afar. In future episodes, it will be shown in other specific ways, sudden pop-ins and specific requests from Peter and Denise, strange pressures and cryptic warnings from Theo and Vanita (as well as Vanita’s own firing). Most importantly, however, it will also be shown in drastic structural overhauls that challenge our Movers. The most notable one being the introduction of the coveted “Principal” title to the company, the rewards of which will, be of course numerous but, above all, specific and coveted for Sena, Quinn, and each of our Movers. This will be the competitive device that both catalyzes and unites our Corps throughout the remainder of our first season,
However, it is in the second season, after this large “Principal” arc of our movers, where we will begin to have this political Game take a more central stage. The conversations we once witnessed from afar will now be told up close and what is being said within them, these philosophical differences between Peter, Denise, Theo, Lyra, Robert Kurvitz, and the board will be given arcs of their own (which will, of course, ALWAYS trickle back down to the Movers in many different ways). The competition that will unite our characters in this season will be two-fold, taking the form of both an overarching succession war and an underlying dance festival debut, the casting process for both dancer and choreographer/choreographic piece. Again, this competition will be intense and the meanings of victory or success will once again be contrasted against the core philosophies of each of our characters.
THE game of space – season three
This Game will come in season three as we find that while all of our characters have grown up, a few of them have grown out as well. These special few will realize that the walls of Wolf Street are now more confining than spacious. We will, of course, keep a large focus on the eternal development of the characters who remain within Wolf Street, chiefly as they reconcile their various changes of perspective and development but, we will also pay special attention to those who will either be leaving or, in some cases, have already left the company in earlier seasons. The competitive spine here will also be two-fold, for the internal, a global tour in the hopes of an international award, and for the external, the chance of working with and learning from a legendary, and somewhat reclusive choreographer as they (the setting of this competition largely taking place on an equally global tour of an iconic pop star.)
the game of time – season four
This Game will come in season four as we find that, while each of our characters have succeeded in finding the Where, they realize that the days still continue to go on and on, again and again, over and over. The introduction of the B company, and the brash spirits of youth within it, will reflect them and challenge them to find what it is they are still missing, an odd thought as they each wonder, “but don’t we now have everything we ever wanted?” Full circle now, the Game here will be like the first season, one against the self. The challenge comes through the understanding that while you can attain everything you desire, there will always a hole in oneself that can never, ever be filled. So what is one supposed to do then? How do you make peace with nothing less than emptiness itself? The final competition will take the shape of a quiet hike up a mountain, we will not see them reach the summit.
Based solely off the amount of text alone, it is clear that the energy of Motion is not sourced from a simple magical, metal block, but rather from the combustion generated from a complex, multi-stage engine that does, to be fair, also just so happen to look like a metal block. However, it is here that I will also remind you, remind myself, remind everyone, that it is the story itself which functions as the ultimate uniting vehicle. A million words from a bible and a nickel will still only get you a cup of coffee.
If you are as exhausted of words by now as I am, let us both take solace in the fact that the next page will be (almost) completely wordless!
Stadium View (Contained)
Church View (Unleashed)