SL-50 / The Rhythm Set
The Teachable Step
An eight-count step designed to be copied. The second run is faster.
The brief
An eight-count dance step built to be replicable — clear enough that a viewer could learn it — performed twice, faster the second time.
Why it's hard
Generated dance is approximate: the shapes read but the counts drift, so nobody could actually follow it. Replicability is a much harder bar than looking good.
Choreograph in counts, and make the second run measurably faster than the first.
Skill Tests
04 / 28Every challenge is scored against the same vocabulary, so you can compare them. Lit cells are what this one tests.
Starter prompt
Built with the CEMI MediaMax system for Google Veo 3.1. Prompts stay in English — that is the language these models take instructions in. Treat it as a starting point and start varying it.
One dancer teaches a repeatable eight-count step in a corridor at 100 BPM. Counts 1-2: step right, close left. Counts 3-4: two heel digs right. Counts 5-6: quarter turn left with a shoulder roll. Counts 7-8: two claps, the second deliberately late. They run it once at tempo, then immediately again at about 112 BPM, tighter and smaller, with a small stumble on count 5 of the second run that they do not correct or acknowledge. The feet stay in frame throughout. Shot in Christopher Doyle's handheld colour register: 25mm vintage prime at f/2.0, visible barrel distortion, the operator stepping backwards to hold the full body and clipping his shoulder on the wall once. DIRTY FOREGROUND: a stack of folded chairs blurs across the right edge. Practical light only, mixed fluorescent tubes and a doorway spill. Audio: a dry percussion loop, the claps, the shoes.
Derived from the CEMI MediaMax production canon — cemi.media
Style reference: Christopher Doyle (handheld colour register)
A step that is meant to be copied has to be legible, so the whole body and especially the feet stay in frame and every count carries one named move. The faster second run is what real teaching looks like and it also forces the model to render the same choreography twice at different tempi, which is the actual difficulty. The uncorrected stumble is the humanity clause — the accepted error, not a retake.
The second run rendered as a fresh, unrelated set of moves rather than the same eight counts faster — and the framing creeping up to a torso shot that cuts the feet off.
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