Abundance

ABUNDANCE is a community arts performance project, gathering stories and exploring ways that people of different classes, races, and ages negotiate economics in their daily lives. The heart of ABUNDANCE is a series of nation-wide interviews with millionaires and minimum-wage workers coupled with a year-long New York-based civic dialogue group including participants ranging from undocumented workers to the very wealthy. Culminating in a tragic musical comedy that premiered in New York in January 2004 after a seven-city national tour, the project made possible an exchange historically marked by silence and shame on both ends of the economic spectrum.

This session will feature OBIE-winning theater artist Marty Pottenger describing her project, reading from the work in progress, presenting a nine-minute video from the New York dialogue group. Participants had the opportunity to engage in some simple and non-threatening group exercises. There also was time for questions and audience discussion about the important issues raised in this groundbreaking performance piece.

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