Season Ten: Where We Are Now
November 2015 we performed a celebratory retrospective called “Five.”, a performance to honor the five years we had existed in Lexington, the six shows we’d produced and the community of dancers we’d built housed under the name Movement Continuum. After that show wrapped, I remember thinking, “Hmm. Wonder if we’ll make it to ten.” Assuming MC would make it another five years, to one decade, made me feel superstitious. I was hyper-aware of jinxing MC, as if the entire company was being carried by turquoise auras and visions of curtain calls. Despite my theatre rat tendencies to believe fates are determined by saying “Break a leg,” instead of “Good luck”, I couldn’t help myself. I quietly, although rarely outloud, daydreamed Season Ten. From 2015-2019, I tried to keep focused on the shows in front of me: Ascendance, Ever After, This is Home Now, Wild Things, Neverland. But, every show we performed, every season closed, I could see ten years evolving. Where it was once a grainy, gritty blur of colors, it was now clear. Sharp lines and hard angles had it standing right in front of me, unblinking, unflinching. Demanding an audition. Demanding shows. Demanding dancers fill its memory with stories we would throw out in rehearsals for the next ten years to come. It was January 2020, and I was sure: Season Ten was here. She was going to be realized. I could give up the ghost. Quit holding the theatre fates in reverence. We were safe. It was time.
Flash forward to November 2020. It’s been nearly nine months, one quarantine, one spring show cancelled, disappointment, coming back with joy, a full company quarantine, coming back again with joy, dancing in masks in 90 degree Kentucky heat with 90% humidity in no air conditioning, Covid scares, new procedures, new protocols, dancing in masks in 45 degree weather doors flung open wide, 29 pieces of choreography set in two and a half months. We pivoted and pivoted. Adapted. Put one another first over and over again. We decided no live show. We’d shoot a film instead. Find the joy in performing for one another, soak up the limelight you can only be given when dancing for someone who shares your art. Your heart. We’d keep one another safe. Quarantine pods, strict regulations, make Movement Continuum the priority for the month of November.
We had a plan. We’d had so many plans.
Nearly a week ago, just 72 hours before we were supposed to move into the Pam Miller Downtown Arts Center, our theatre for the past decade, I got a call that due to Fayette County being in a “high red zone”, the PMDAC had been asked to close to the public. We would not be allowed to load in, rehearse, to film. We would not be allowed to enter the theatre. I shouldn’t have been surprised. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. Nothing in 2020 has gone according to plan. Everything, everyone has been shifted, backtracked, turned on its side. All of us, colorful blocks held hostage in a morbid game of Tetris since March. I don’t know if you could call what I felt surprised. It was more like numb. There hasn’t been much news to cross the screen or speaker of my phone that’s been what you would call “good” these last months. I think like most of us, I’ve become desensitized to bad news. Fix-it, problem-solving mode is a new survival mode now, except instead of picking one path to stay alive, we pick 20 and wait to see which one is going to actually be travelable at the last minute.
I called an emergency meeting, and about four hours later I sat on the floor in a circle with 18 fellow dancers and told them our tenth season show was indefinitely postponed. It was discouraging and disheartening news to deliver. I’ve never heard any group so quiet, but the disappointment hung heavy and silent in the air, speaking for itself. It’s hard to do everything within your control, to sacrifice, keep the faith, and it still not be enough to move forward.
The unknowns weigh heavy on us now. Not to be melodramatic, but I’m what you would call “devastated” by this. But, here’s the thing- I don’t know a tougher, more resilient group of women. If it had to happen to anyone, I’m grateful it’s this particular community. I’ve watched them rise and rise again during this year. Everytime, pulling me up with them. When I am tired, when I am out of ideas, when I am the worst version of myself, they still pull me up with them. Because they rise, I rise. That’s how I know we’ll make it through this. They perservere. Movement Continuum will perservere, and one day we’ll look back on Season Ten in amazement, proud of our character, of how we banded together. Proud of how we kept faith at the top of our hearts.
This season, the one that was supposed to be filled with loud celebration, has instead been unimaginable. But, it has taught me celebrations aren’t always loud. Sometimes, the biggest celebration you need is the quiet knowledge you’re united with a community who will rise and rise again, and each time they rise, they bring you with them.
-Kate