To Begin The World Over Again

Delirious Dances and Numinous invite you to join them on September 27 – October 6, 2012 at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY to celebrate Thomas Paine and The Promise of America.

To Begin The World Over Again explores the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Democracy that Thomas Paine fervently advocated and fought for, and celebrates those ideals through music, dance, panel discussions and an art exhibition.

Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809) was an immigrant, an author, an inventor, a revolutionary, and one of the founding fathers of the United States. Paine was a free thinker and a visionary. He called for an end to slavery, for the rights of man and woman regardless of property or wealth, and for a democratic program of aid to young people and pensions for the elderly – concepts and rights that we now too often take for granted. Paine was vilified by the propertied, powerful and pious for his radical-democratic beliefs, and especially for his critique of institutionalized religion.

Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, published in 1776, was a best seller. It challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. It was the first work to openly insist on independence from Great Britain and convinced many people that America should be an independent nation, and inspired them to support and join the Revolutionary War.

Paine believed that America could begin the world over again as the first democratically governed nation; 

“We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand.” - Common Sense, Thomas Paine.

How would you begin the world over again?

To Begin the World Over Again 

Dance Performance, Panel Discussions, Art Exhibition, Teach-in's

September 27, 28, 29

October 4, 5, 6

2012

By Edisa Weeks and Joseph C. Phillips

Performed by Delirious Dances and Numinous

Co-produced by the Irondale Center

Irondale Center

85 South Oxford Street

Brooklyn, NY 11217