8980: Book of Travelers, feat. Gabriel Kahane

301 North 12th Street,Lincoln NE 68508

26 July, 2022

Description

8980: Book of Travelers is an attempt to rediscover and celebrate our collective humanity in the face of deep political and cultural divisions. The day after the 2016 presidential election, Gabriel Kahane set out on an 8,980 mile train trip around the continental U.S. with no phone or internet connection. The song cycle/monodrama that resulted etches not just a series of intimate character studies, but also tells the story of a poignant encounter with a group of young men whom Kahane almost certainly would not have met within the confines of our silo’d digital culture. In a chilling coda, Gabriel draws from his grandmother’s diary— written during her own cross-country train trip after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939— asking the audience to contemplate the varied scars of our collective past, while at the same time offering a seed of hope in the notion that when we step outside of our digital lives, we may have more in common with our fellow Americans than we’re often led to believe.