More on that later.. – Motion X Dance Company at Atlas, Intersections by Ashayla Byrd

Motion X Dance Company: Polyscope

Atlas Performing Arts Center

March 8, 2024 7:30 pm

by Ashayla Byrd

Small world! I say it often as a dance artist. It is virtually impossible to familiarize myself with every player in the vast expanse of the American dance field, and yet, I always know someone who knows someone (who knows someone that knows the teacher or sibling of the person in question). Imagine my surprise when learning that Motion X’s choreographer, Stephanie Dorrycott, is an alumna of my alma mater! She took the reins of her own dance company and made her way to the Atlas Performing Arts Center as part of the Atlas Intersections Festival.  

Although her time at Shenandoah came over ten years before mine, Dorrycott sweated through the same dance technique classes that I did. She likely woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn to make it to an 8AM ballet class, perhaps without breakfast like me. She performed on the same stage with the heat of the stage lights barreling down on her skin. Her collegiate dance training, in some ways, mirrored mine. That training seems to have resonated differently for the two of us. Our university did not create robots, but some tenets of that pedagogy stick more closely to some dancers than others. More on that later. 

Naturally, this knowledge of our shared foundations affected the lens with which I viewed the work Dorrycott shared. The opening number, Turning Point, was a contemporary work focused on the critical point that one faces when making an important decision. The six-dancer ensemble, clad in navy blue tops and olive green bottoms, traverse the space in isolated patterns as the sounds of ambient, electronic music colors the air. Six handheld LED lights line the back of the stage. Throughout the work, the dancers move in response to or in opposition with the lights; the lights become characters of their own. The dancers, the lights they manipulate, and the shadows they cast all wrestle for stability as the dance intensifies. 

The angular shapes each dancer creates evoke a sense of restriction and internal turmoil. They juxtapose weightlessness against groundedness, extension against disintegration, length with depth, and spaciousness with confinement. The dancers would often connect with one another, counterbalancing their movement and exploring just how much tension they can create while maintaining their stability. This push and pull of opposites further reinforces the conflict at play and exemplifies the cause and effect of our decisions, how they affect us, and the impact it has on those sharing space with us. The questions resound. Will our choices uplift others? Will they complicate our narrative? Which comes first: personal or collective choice? How much of what we think we have chosen has actually been chosen for us? Turning Point took me back to the dances of my college days. More on that later. 

Comme Je Suis is a contemporary ballet work that makes its message fairly clear without much mental calculus. With the magic of intentional costuming, a dramatic solo, and some intense string instrumentals, I could gather that one dancer was bending over backwards to be accepted, seen, and respected by the others. Her scarlet, ankle-length skirt, scrambling amongst the sea of powder blue skirts, is reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Rather than being excommunicated for her religious beliefs and branded with an “A” on her clothing, Dorrycott’s soloist is doomed to dance with a stunning passion and abandon that conveys her longing to be included and considered. The dancers around her dance just as passionately, but with a contrasting stoicism and apathy for the soloist’s pleading. 

Calling a contemporary ballet dance “textbook” feels a bit counterintuitive given the ephemeral nature of contemporary dance itself, but Comme Je Suis employs a movement aesthetic that made me feel an involuntary sense of deja vu when I absorbed it. (Hooray for more French!) This familiarity comes not from having performed it many times over, but I have seen this movement and choreographic structure many times over. There is the dramatic reach, the occasional flexed foot that suddenly makes the movement contemporary, the soloist’s yearning and arresting look out to the audience, and the big “WHACK!” of an extended leg that perfectly matches a fierce chord played by the strings of the accompaniment. The group assists the soloist in something we dancers like to call “The Jesus Lift” or one of its cousins: the group works together to lift and display a dancer whose arms are outstretched, demonstrating a kind of vulnerability that can be likened to, dare I say, a crucifixion of sorts. A punishment for difference or a display of strength? This is up to the choreographer to decide. Maybe the two truths exist at once. That’s a little thing we like to call nuance. On the whole, Comme Je Suis follows the journey of a dancer, a woman, a soul, an existence that is forced to coexist with presences committed to shunning her. It’s giving one of these things is not like the others. More on that later, too. 

And this leads us to Polyscope, the titular, lengthier work of the evening at the Atlas. A visually appealing presentation that blends film with dance, this work comments on passion and its mutations from childhood to adulthood, how one’s passion can often be constricted due to the complexities and adversity of life. The work opens with footage circling around adorable stuffed animals, fairy figurines, multicolored iridescent cubes, glitter, astrobright cardstock, and bubbles. I was pleasantly surprised to see videos of two very young, ginger-haired caucasian girls in colorful tutus playing with bright scarves and gym dots in a bright studio space. As those images fade from the screen, a group of slightly older caucasian girls come on stage dressed playfully and perform an endearing ensemble dance together. Their ribbons, scarves, ponytails, and bun-buns are clearly childlike and signal a passage of time from the initial video. Coming in like clockwork, an older group (and the central ensemble of the evening), replaces the children. Each wearing khaki pants and individually-colored shirts, the dancers each seem to weave in and out of a state of apathy and joy depending on whether they are seated or standing up. It is worth noting that one BIPOC dancer seems to be part of the ensemble, but more on that later. I keep saying that, but just let me cook for a bit. 

They continue performing more of that contemporary I have seen before, sans the ballet steps. This is the contemporary that Dorrycott and I were trained to admire with varying levels of success between the two of us. Again, my university did not create robots, but certain tenets stuck longer than others. A smaller group of dancers removes their colorful shirts, revealing gray tank tops underneath. Their movement becomes joyless, uninspired, exemplifying the loss of passion as time passes. Large, silver boxes make their way onto the stage, and the ensemble reconvenes to move the boxes as synthesized strings and instruments permeate the air and they all struggle to find their individuality and passion again. Stark white and silver footage is projected onto the back wall as more (caucasian) dancers move in ways that further demonstrate a sense of longing and lack of inspiration. The boxes are shuffled around, built up, broken down and eventually opened to reveal smaller colorful boxes inside of them. The colored shirts are back; the projections are bright and lively again; the movement is jubilant. It’s all lovely and inspiring. 

More on that later starts now. Perhaps not knowing the choreographer’s dance educational background might have shaped my viewing in a more objective lens, but how much of dance viewership can truly be objective? The beauty and confusion of dance and art is its subjective nature. The dancers of Motion X? Predominantly white. The movement aesthetics? Overtly Eurocentric. This experience directly mirrors my collegiate dance journey. Just as in Turning Point, I continually wondered how much autonomy I truly had in my dance training when the forms I studied were originally made to exclude me. Could I be respected as a Black dancer in a sea of whiteness, just as the scarlet soloist struggled for acceptance in Comme Je Suis? Could my passion for dance be nurtured when the faces I saw–studied in dance history, compared myself to, cried over, simply could not be–looked nothing like mine? Moved nothing like I did? I can concede that my professors were, for the most part, quite gentle with my heart and enlivened my hunger for finding movement styles that felt empowering and enriching for me. They were going by the curriculum and what they knew. But this continuous othering, whether intentional or not, stuck. Some tenets of the Eurocentric pedagogy that dominates collegiate dance curriculums stick more than others. 

Stephanie Dorrycott went with what she knows. What would happen if more choreographers questioned what they know? More professors? More artistic directors? More executive directors? More arts nonprofits? What if folks thought more deeply about the status quo and their comfort (or lack thereof) within it? I cannot assume that Dorrycott is not already asking these questions, but I can be curious.

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Ashayla Byrd (she/they) (@abyrdnyca) is a DC-based dance artist and writer who is dedicated to amplifying the voices of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ folks. Originally from Virginia Beach, Ashayla is eager to explore the richness of DC’s dance and writing communities!