Interstate, 2022
Produced by Bang on a Can and Big Dance Theater
Directed and Choreographed by Annie-B Parson with Jennie MaryTai Liu
Music by David Lang
Video and Performance by Jennie MaryTai Liu
Camera by Richie Fowler and Adam Ruszkowski
Special appearances by Lavender, Orlando, and Andrew Gilbert
Costumes by Suzanne Bocanegra
Hong Kong Video Producer- Nelson Ng Chak-Hei
Note from Annie-B Parson
When I first heard Interstate by David Lang, it immediately conjured images in my mind-- images of steps, stairs, locomotion-- a sense of on-going-ness and infinity that stairs imply. I heard the music in parts-- six parts, and thought of the dancer/ film maker Jennie Liu as the right collaborator, and her family as part of the film. These were my first thoughts: Jennie/her family/stairs/the number 6. As the invitation to work on Lang'sInterstate was during the heart of Covid, working virtually was the only possibility, so the fact that Jennie lived in LA was fine; we could work on Zoom. The world was slowed down, and our process was a slow one taking place over an eventful year. The domesticity of Covid, the home entering our work was inevitable, and we welcomed it, so when I asked Jennie to show me some stair cases in her neighborhood, Jennie zoomed me in to some in her home and around her in LA, and we presumed these staircases would be our stage. But a few months into our process, Jennie travelled to England, to her mother's home, wondering if she should stay there with her children, and we started to reimagine the piece danced on a long, narrow carpeted staircase in her mother's home in England, and it felt warm, nostalgic and domestic. Then suddenly, Jennie moved to Hong Kong and the visual plot thickened for Interstate. Interstate was now set in Hong Kong, and the dance was on an entirely different world of staircases, a completely different urban landscape-- literally around the world from the original site of LA. Inevitably, to deepen the truth of the film, Jennie's family became the cast. So like most things made during the pandemic, making Interstate is a story of adaptation, family and distance, and of course, music and dance.