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Performance of City Water Tunnel #3

NYS Writers Institute, October 7, 1999
8:00 p.m. Performance | Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

PROFILE
Marty Pottenger, solo performer, writer and artistic director will perform her Obie-winning performance of City Water Tunnel #3 (1996-99). Pottenger is an artist, carpenter and contractor with more than 20 years of experience in performance art and the construction business. Her multimedia project, City Water Tunnel #3, tells the story, in many voices, of the building of the largest non-defense public works project in the Western Hemisphere: a new aqueduct begun in the 1970's to add to New York City's water supply. Pottenger weaves together interviews with tunnel workers, personal observations, images, video, graphs, artifacts from the construction project and sound recordings mixed with an original score by Steve Elson.

"Pottenger builds image upon image so that through our understanding of people and their work we become engrossed in how the tunnel is built. City Water Tunnel #3 is a poignant intersection of technology and art." - Dance Magazine

". . .against all odds, Marty Pottenger establishes a city water-delivery system as a backdrop for an often lyrical show that speaks with intimate knowledge, and yes, even love, about holes in the ground and the people who drill them." - The New York Times

Pottenger serves on the New York State Council of the Arts Theater Commission, and is a recipient of a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship for theater. She received an Obie for City Water Tunnel #3 from the Village Voice in 1996. Other performance pieces include Dirt (1992), Construction Stories (1991), and House Building Time (1989).

Cosponsored by:
Affirmative Action Office
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Graduate Student Organization Multi-Cultural Affairs/Affirmative Action Committee
National Association of Women in Construction
Solidarity Committee of the Capital District
Theatre Department
United University Professions
Department of Women's Studies
Friends of WRPI

Additional Links:
Workshop, Making City Water Tunnel #3
Listen to Real Audio Excerpts