choreomania

An “infected” person stands between them and the door, making a repetitive series of movements. Survivors mimic movements to avoid confrontation, make their way into the old church.

The survivors are nearly fully covered up with jackets and hoodies, with steam-punk style goggles over their eyes. On entering the church, they see windows and glass doors covered by old newspaper and cardboard. The survivors walk past the sanctuary doors, making their way up two flights of stairs to the balcony overlooking the sanctuary. They quietly set their bags down and fall asleep almost immediately.

[Possible hyper lapse shot of sunlight going through phases, beaming through different stained glass windows that surround the sanctuary.]

Music notes: a cappella, dark-version of “You Are My Sunshine” (Jennifer C?) punctuates the worrisome stillness of the “refuge” they have found. Possible to reuse some verses later (see Music Notes section) or to incorporate lyrics from the warning message (see Warning Message section) over the instrumental music selections used to score subsequent sequences. Lots of intentionality required to enhance contrast between cycles of chaos and stillness: sections each have their own unique music, but there’s connective tissue that ties the score together, as a whole.

LATER THAT DAY

An unknown amount of time passes; the survivors awaken to dusk light entering through the stained glass windows of the sanctuary. They look over the edge of the balcony, noticing movement below. It’s unclear what’s happening. There appear to be figures in some pews, but the sanctuary is in shadows and it’s difficult to see clearly.

The survivors make their way down the two flights of stairs, using a side door to enter the sanctuary. They encounter an “infected” person inside the sanctuary, locked into the familiar cycle of repetitive movements. They imitate the movements and make their way beyond the ‘infected’ person.

Seeing hands emerging from several pews, the survivors move quickly to the front of the sanctuary and navigate to stairs leading downstairs.

Escaping to and apprehensively exploring the lower level, they encounter another infected person(s) in the basement rooms. They turn around and go back up to the sanctuary.

Ultimately the lead survivor comes face-to-face with the “infected” person they first noticed in the sanctuary. He panics on locking eyes with the “infected” person in the sanctuary, dropping his light on the ground. The drop puts the light into a strobe mode. Slow motion with a tight shot on the infected person’s eyes, which seem to hold some glimmer of understanding, rather than fear.

FLASHBACK
Several years prior, seven sisters are living in the parsonage of an old church. A number of scenes unfold with laughter and dancing. (Obviously this needs to be fleshed out.)

BACK TO REALITY
Modern day. Return to survivor and infected person locking eyes with strobe light flashing.

INT. CHURCH – NIGHT or DAWN
(Assuming we rig very bright lights outside WEST stained-glass window, like moonlight.) The light of the moon coming into the space Transition to harder, heavier rock style music. Survivor backs up to show the perspective of the hosts, who are equally as scared by the visitors, as they are of them.

Both the survivors and the sisters exhibit different motivations throughout their interactions, with “fear” as the common denominator.

The movement in this sequence, with all survivors and sisters in the sanctuary, comprises the largest section of the piece. The sound and movement within the sanctuary draws the attention of “infected” persons outside, whom we see as silhouettes through covered up windows. The choreography in the sanctuary will determine the resolution. If they are to make it through this, the survivors and the sisters must develop some bonds of trust, to escape from the cycle of tribalistic, “us v. them” responses to one another.

Ultimately leading to an escape? Together? This is what we need to figure out.

Survivors in the post-societal world use AM radio frequencies to communicate with other survivors, transmitting and receiving live or recorded messages with manual (hand-crank) generators.

The frequency painted on the church doors is AM 1518. The recorded message that plays on that frequency is a warning, based on text created by Sandia National Laboratories in 1993 to appear on signs at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico (USA). In order to create this text, scientists worked with linguists to compose a message that warned against human intrusion up to 10,000 years into the future, even after the loss of modern languages.

As described in the script, an audio recording of this warning message begins to play on the survivors’ hand-crank radio (in their vehicle) just as they close the doors to exit. They don’t hear the warning message; but, the viewer hears it, as the survivors are attempting to sneak past an infected person and enter the church for refuge.

Not the kind of dancing you’d see at your cousin’s wedding after six glasses of champagne, though honestly that would have been strange enough. No, this was a feverish, uncontrolled movement that continued for days on end. Contemporary accounts describe Troffea’s movements as wild and erratic: arms flailing, body twisting, feet stomping with no discernible rhythm. Her face contorted in what witnesses described as a mixture of pain and ecstasy. Most disturbingly, she couldn’t stop. When exhaustion overtook her, she would collapse, only to rise again and continue her macabre performance once she had regained minimal strength.

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This is important.

We should try to have a moment when silence between survivors is no longer relevant, because they each know what the other is: and the lead sister instantaneously, loudly starts to (lip-sync) hard lyrics to the music, using the warning message as the lyryics. Just out of the blue, straight to 11 as the previously-instrumental-only music still plays, the lead survivor belts out these lyrics at the visiting survivors. “No good deed is commemorated here…” etc. Just one short phrase like that, lip-syncing the actual singing of Jennifer C or someone ideally female. The singing can stop and be replaced by an instrument that’s already part of the score underneath this one vocalized phrase of singing. Maybe later there could be some quiet chant/chorus of a few phrases from the lyrics / warning message. We should use that warning message like crazy because it’s brilliantly written. And we should look for opportunities wherever we can find them, to punch people in the face.

In any case, we will want to plot out the stillness and crescendos in advance, and acquiring music that fits our movement score (this means filming and dance, both). Rather than fitting the filming and dance into a pre-established form.

Also here’s a real link to new expunk music.

Be interesting to discuss some (momentary or longer) insertion of a version of You Are My Sunshine that is true to the song? Bc that shit is dark and heavy and it could be devastatingly awesome if done right, a la Jennifer C.

The following list maps out different areas where choreography can be created to advance the story. As mentioned above, the sanctuary, basement and front-facade areas are designated for use in the post-societal sequences. Meanwhile, the parsonage and backyard-garden areas are intended for the flashback sequences.

Front Facade (EXT)

While the traveling survivors may see a few ‘infected’ persons on/along the street en route to the church, their first interaction with an ‘infected’ person happens outside the board-up doors, when they pull up at the start. Infected persons exhibit an individualized “movement phrase” that is unique to each person, yet these phrases contain commonalities among all infected persons. This is the first opportunity to create choreography, as a customizable template for all infected persons.

Kitchen

Sanctuary

Upon detecting some movement below where they sleep in the balcony seating area, the traveling survivors make their way to the sanctuary and have their first encounter with some ‘infected’ persons (the sisters). This drives them down, into the basement, where they encounter additional sisters who are supposedly infected persons.

Kitchen

In the same sequence post-encounter in sanctuary, the kitchen should be explored and used to its full potential.

Basement

After the first encounter in the sanctuary, when the traveling survivors flee to the basement to escape the “infected” sisters in the sanctuary… only to find others, down below.

Kitchen

In the same sequence post-encounter in sanctuary, the kitchen should be explored and used to its full potential.

Sanctuary (main)

Returning to the main sanctuary area from the kitchen/basement, the traveling survivors have their main/full encounter with the ‘infected’ sisters. This is the longest sequence of choreo, broken up by the flashback sequences of course.

Facade doors, windows (INT)

Potential “shadows and silhouettes” of infected persons outside, trying to make their way in, after detecting all of the movement and noise inside (from the encounter between the traveling survivors, and the sisters.)

Facade (EXT)

Potential closing ‘escape’ scene, tbd.

Parsonage, living areas, backyard garden

Flashback sequences: We will develop a more detailed list of movement scores for these “flashback” sequence locations.

As discussed in the Premise section (top) human beings rely on behavioral “cues” to determine whether a person is an ally, or a threat. Us, or them. In-group, or out-group.

A lot of the tension and interplay between characters hinges on the early interactions between the traveling survivors and the sisters at the church. We must not give either group any easy/binary “cues” to establish if the other group is a threat. The process for each to determine threat-level is a key aspect of the tension between them.

The sisters present as female. We will present the visitors in concealed, androgynous/male wardrobe in order to deny the sisters’ easy clues re. their intentions. In addition, the Dancing Plague’s ‘patient zero was a woman (‘Frau Troffea.)

These gender roles leave room to explore the dynamics of vulnerability, threat-assessment, dominance, fear, bias, empathy and how we treat strangers.