Technique — bodily control — must be mastered only because the body must not stand in the way of the soul’s expression. The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not prevent the soul from expressing itself. — 𝑳𝒂 𝑴𝒆𝒓𝒊.
CHARACTER BASICS.
FULL NAME: Manon Alexstrasza Movska.
NICKNAME(S): Manny ( to those that she's close with ).
FACECLAIM: Olivia Cooke.
GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis-female, she + her
AGE & BIRTHDAY: 32 & December 4th.
BIRTHPLACE: Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union ( now Saint Petersburg, Russia ).
OCCUPATION: Soloist / Prima Ballerina at Joffery Ballet Company.
SEXUALITY: Pansexual ( female preference ).
RESIDENCE: The Loft District, The Ironworks Loft, Unit #10A.
SPOKEN LANGUAGES: Russian, English, French, Spanish, Italian ( conversationally ).
CHARACTER BUILDING.
THREE POSITIVE TRAITS: Passionate, Uninhibited, Resilient.
THREE NEGATIVE TRAITS: Recklessly Hedonistic, Restless, Defiantly Arrogant.
STORY.
Manon Movska was born in the swirling, frostbitten splendor of Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union — before the city's grand transformation into Saint Petersburg. Raised amidst opulent chandeliers and the unrelenting discipline of the Mariinsky Theatre, she was the daughter of privilege, but she never once coasted on the weight of her family name. Ballet was not just her inheritance; it was her obsession. The sacred burn of muscle, the exhilaration of velocity, the whispered ecstasy of a perfect arabesque — Manon did not simply dance, she devoured movement.
She was beautiful in the way that nightshade is mesmerizing, or poison is sweet. Born to a prominent family in St. Petersburg, there was never a time in which Manon was anything but lovely, with her doe eyes and intense glances, the drape of furs across slim, pale shoulders. There were the dolls, the flowers, the dresses of silk and lace, but more so — the dance, the opera, all that which made Russia unique, all that which had built her legacy. Manon’s early life was a series of quick sketches, days spent training her craft, perfecting her physique and mind to morph into that which she admired. She saw Giselle in Chelyabinsk when she was five, and was struck by the fact that it felt just like a fairytale: something refined, elegant, and distant; something untouchable — and she wished to be that untouchable figure upon the stage, a ghost of impressions and techniques, modern goddess of blood and snow. It was in those moments of decision that her childhood fled from her before it had even begun and her cheeks lost their rosiness, beginning instead to frost like ice — like a girl who would rise, and rise, until she was so high that nothing else mattered.
Her choices pleased her parents. Her parents tossed their heads triumphantly at having produced such a wonderful spirit, calm and seemingly demure, graceful in all things. Manon, true to the Movska tradition, did not ever act as other children did: there was never an instance in which she was completely ordinary. To be a dancer, a ballerina, a weaver of dreams, one must sacrifice all: and she understood the word well. Sacrifice, to trade one valuable thing ( her childhood ) for something more precious ( her ambitions ).
She endured it all with dignity, a degree of careful humility innate only to the best ballerinas, and as the hours of dancing alone before the television became the sole priority of her waking hours, her parents piled their wealth behind her, an initiative for greatness. And so she became a ballerina in training attending an academy for the most gifted. While the worker’s children ran laughing through the streets, red hats and black shoes, she sat in the backseat of her father’s chauffeured cars, watching the world pass by, her aching, bleeding feet resting… waiting for another day at the bars, small face staring into her own eyes in the mirror. Arabesque, plié, grande jeté — repeat and repeat, until perfection shone in the sweat of her brow and the bruises on her feet.
Triumf, malenkaya koroleva.
From the moment she could stand, her feet were shaped into exquisite instruments of precision. Every morning began with grueling barre exercises, every evening ended with exhaustion, her young limbs trembling with both torment and triumph. Under the iron tutelage of Russia’s finest, she ascended from promising student to prodigious soloist, her talents eclipsing even the highest expectations. By her late teens, she had already danced across the great stages of Europe, moving from Moscow to Paris to Vienna, her name murmured in hushed, reverent tones among ballet’s elite.
Those years are a blur. Every great dancer remembers most vividly not the pain, but the glory, and when she was picked up by the Mariinsky Ballet immediately after her graceful reign at Vaganova, every moment of blood, sweat, and tears was worth it. One year, two years, five years — she was a prima ballerina of the world’s greatest stage; half queen and half goddess, fully ethereal in her allegros, her pirouettes. She commanded the stage in a manner that very few had ever before; bold yet delicate, striking yet subtle — and from all over the world her admirers flocked, to see her another time on that imperial stage framed in gold and ash. She was Juliette dancing to die, Odette dancing to live, every dream that men and women could have had, she could capture for them in a series of adagios. And so she did, and as she became more famous and more beautiful, her ambition only grew, and grew, until she believed that she could go down in history as Russia’s most prolific prima ballerina.
Even with her reign at the Mariinsky secure, with the world at her feet and Russia singing her praises, Manon found herself restless. She had danced through Moscow’s grandeur, twirled beneath the Parisian moon, spun through Vienna’s hallowed halls, and yet, it was not enough. She craved the unknown, the thrill of fresh audiences and untamed stages. Europe, America — these were not merely destinations, but new frontiers of adventure, challenges to conquer, theaters to command. And so, when the opportunity arose, she seized it with the hunger of an artist who knew that even the most glittering cages were still cages. She was ready to set the world ablaze with the fire of her movement.
Now thirty-two, Manon is more than a prima ballerina — she is a force of nature. She dances not with rigid precision but with raw instinct, her body an instrument of unfiltered passion. Sensual and unapologetically open, she embraces life as she does the stage: wildly, freely, with no regard for convention. Resilient, she rises from the ashes of every challenge, crafting herself anew with every performance, ever-refusing to bend to fate. There was a time, years ago, when she burned bright in an affair with Lena Finch, a flame that consumed them both before flickering into embers. But history lingers in every duet, in every glance across the rehearsal floor. As fate — or mere chance — would have it, she now finds herself in Willow Peak, Chicago, a soloist and principal dancer at the Joffrey Ballet Company, where her former lover also graces the stage. Their bodies move once more in tandem, their past whispered in every pas de deux. And yet, Manon does not dwell on yesterday; she is too busy dancing her way into eternity.