Sufjan Stevens premiered The BQE, a film and musical suite exploring New York City’s infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in November 2007. The critically applauded performance featured 36 performers including a band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, a horn section, projected film footage of the expressway and five hula hoopers!
The concept behind *The BQE* is based largely on the history of New York’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway—12.7 miles of urban roadway built between 1939 and1964 by master urban planner Robert Moses. The Viewmaster®, unveiled at the 1939 NYC World’s Fair (the World’s Fair being part of the motivation for the construction of the BQE, funnelling New Yorkers to and from Flushing, Queens), was intended to promote 3-D panoramic illusions of the American landscape and serve as advertising for various tourist destinations and motivation for American drivers. The Hooper Heroes comic book, written by Stevens and drawn, coloured and inked by collaborator Stephen Halker, follows three extra-terrestrial superhero sisters who use hula-hoops to combat 'the Messiah of Civic Projects', Captain Moses.
Tracks
1. Prelude On The Esplanade
2. Introductory Fanfare For The Hooper Heroes
3. Movement 1 - In The Countenance Of Kinds
4. Movement 2 - Sleeping Invader
5. Interlude - Dream Sequence In Subi Circumnavigation
6. Movement 3 - Linear Tableau Eiyh Intersecting Surprise
7. Movement 4 - Traffic Shock
8. Movement 5 - Self-Organising Emergent Patterns
9. Interlude 2 - Subi Power Waltz
10. Interlude 3 - Invisible Accidents
11. Movement 6 - Isorhythmic Night Dance With Interchanges
12. Movement 7 (Finale) - The Emperor Of Centrifuge
13. Postlude - Critical Mass
