The Intermission Project

Music

“22 Hands” from “This is Not a Piano, Volume I” by Alfonso Peduto; “Talisman” and “Them” by Nils Frahm; “Saman” by Olafur Arnalds; “Illuminate” and “Breathless” by Carly Comando; “Opus 23” and “Fine” by Dustin O’Halloran; “Threnody” by Goldmund

Choreography

Price Suddarth

Direction & Videography

Price Suddarth

Editing

Price Suddarth

Costume Design

Elizabeth Murphy

Lighting Design

Reed Nakayama

Premiere

March 2021; Pacific Northwest Ballet (Digital Release)

The 2021 world premiere of Price Suddarth’s The Intermission Project is supported by Deidra Wager and Dr. Joe G. Norman, Jr.

Program Notes

Intermission implies a period of time spent between. In 2021, most of us find ourselves caught in between—between what our normal was, and what our new post-COVID 19 normal will look like.  The Intermission Project addresses this poignant moment, as artists feel frozen in isolation from what they “do”—from the lights, from the curtain, from the stage, and from the audience.

A nine-part film project presented in three distinct acts, this work aims to capture the complex emotional and cerebral journey we each have found ourselves on this past year. The digital “stage” has offered artists a direct throughway to meet audiences in their homes, right where they sit.  With this thought in mind, The Intermission Project has been distilled into nine distinct points, which can be consumed and digested by the viewer at one’s own pace and in one’s own time—a 4-minute piece here and there, a slightly longer 12-minute act, or the full 35 minutes in one sitting.

Art strives to introduce, address, and ultimately answer a question; however, currently questions are all we have. And most cannot be answered. Rather than seeking to know the unknowable, this piece seeks to bring the questions to the surface, and lean into them. Right now it’s all anyone can do, until the intermission ends and we can see what our next act will hold.

Notes by Emma Love Suddarth