Initially the “states” voice self-doubt and insecurity. The struggles of a dancer’s life come through: Can I do it? What if I fail? Did I give up too much for this? We don’t have to be dancers to identify. The talk becomes a cacophony of recrimination and second-guessing. The narrator steps in with several interludes of poetic monologue. These pauses allow the performers to stretch out in sections of pure dance. An obsessive ritual of counting recurs, recognizable as the way dancers mark and memorize movement phrases. The energy is tightly wound. Boykin has thoroughly mined her experience and doesn’t take any shortcuts as, with courage and vulnerability, she patiently exposes it all.

Each of the dancers eventually take a solo and certain characters are paired in duets. Fana Minea Tesfagiorgis as the Cynical and Davon Rashawn Farmer as the Convinced are naturally in conflict and they move with angular juts and arms akimbo. Jessica Amber Pinkett as the Determined represents the author with a shaved head in honor of Boykin’s famously shining pate. She’s often at the center of the “states” as the one to whom their arguments are directed, the one they aim to convince. Lauren Rothert as the Conformist is comically engaging as a compulsive people pleaser. She can’t help but grin and make a thumbs up gesture with one hand that she then pushes away with the other. Later, Conformist supports Determined to prevent her from falling, then at the last moment, slides out from under and lets Pinkett drop to the floor.