Virtual Event: Putting Creativity to Work on Impossible Challenges (Jan 27)

As part of our ongoing ArtsEngage Learning Community, Ontario Presents is excited to announce our next Spotlight Session!
 

Putting Creativity to Work on Impossible Challenges

Virtual, free event
Wednesday, January 27th from 2:00 - 4:00pm ET

This interactive, virtual conversation is available to interested members of the performing arts community free of charge. Email info [at] ontariopresents [dot] ca (subject: Spotlight%20Registration) to register. Space is limited- first preference will be given to Ontario-based presenters and artists. As this will be an interactive session, we ask that you register only if you are able to participate for the full session.

We are thrilled to welcome award-winning theatre artist Marty Pottenger for a stimulating conversation about the role the arts can play in fostering productive civic dialogues and addressing tough social challenges.

In these times of deepening inequity and polarization, live performance’s unique transformative potential can play a powerful role. Through her organization Art At Work, Marty partners with communities, organizations and municipal governments to put creativity to work addressing non-arts-based challenges like racial discrimination, high staff turnover, labor management tensions, workforce morale, community resilience.

As COVID forces all of us to interrogate our roles in society, we are excited to welcome an artist who has been putting art to work in performances, theatres, festivals, and workshops long before the current pandemic.
 
Want to hear a bit from Marty in advance? Check out her inspiring TEDx talk:

Missed our previous Spotlights? Find the recording, notes, and other resources from the ArtsEngage Learning Community here. Plus, stay tuned for future Spotlight Sessions!

Speaker Bio:

Marty Pottenger is a theatre artist, playwright, activist, and pioneer in social practice derived theatre, creative placemaking, and arts-based civic dialogues. She is the founder of Art At Work, a national initiative that puts creativity to work strengthening city governments’ ability to meet challenges of inequity, partisanship, and climate emergency. Marty received an OBIE award for City Water Tunnel #3, a performance and three-year community art project celebrating the building of the largest public works project in the Western Hemisphere.

Since 1975, her plays have toured the United States and Europe. As playwright, frequent performer, and director, her plays include: #PhillySavesEarth (Painted Bride); ABUNDANCE: America & Money (NYC, Philadelphia, Seattle, Burlington, Houston, Providence, Chicago); City Water Tunnel #3 (Obie-award, Judith Anderson Theatre, NYC & ICA, London, Yugoslavia, Italy); Radio Calls (Portland, ME); home land security (Portland, ME); and Construction Stories (NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin TX).  Marty is currently at work on MAINEUSA – a tragic musical comedy about the history of Maine from the Ice Age till now. As told by a cast of 100 community and professional performers and a life-size Right Whale puppet, MAINEUSA aspires for audience participants to awaken a fierce determination to combat climate destruction.