About the Show
This play tells the multi-generational story of water and its tumultuous relationship with the African American community. WATER quilts a narrative of trauma and triumph. the fluidity of fear and its ability to move us forward or hold us back, together discovering the healing power of collective pain. Utilizing devised theater methods, the piece explores how diving deep into an anguished lineage and honoring ancestral strife can be a resurrective act in and of itself.
About the Artists
Alexis Atkinson is an actress, writer, and director born and raised in Jamaica, Queens, New York. Atkinson majored in Theater & Dance, acting and directing concentration, and American Studies at Colby College. Passionate about social justice, performance art, and building communities, her work as an artist and storyteller focuses on carving humanity out of marginalization and racial identity politics with a particular focus on blackness and resurrection. Toward the end of her undergraduate studies, Atkinson earned a performance laboratory residency with her college to incubate a new work. In this process, she developed her first one-woman show, Constellations, which later had its New York at Dixon Place in August 2016. Additionally, she developed an educational program for high school students called Storytellers that incorporates autobiographical creative writing and theater to generate material for their personal statements in the college application process. http://alexismatkinson.weebly.com/
Chelsea D. Harrison is proud to be a part of the initial development of WATER. Chelsea has a passion for the development of new works of theater and creating arts events across New York City. Chelsea is also an actress and has recently returned from performing in Washington, D.C. at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as the capital Fringe Festival. In 2015, she was an Inaugural Fellow for the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship from the Tisch School of the Arts which gave her an introduction to executive producing her own creative projects. She is also a dancer, writer, and teaching artist who works with a range of students from kindergarten ballerinas to incarcerated teens and adults at Rikers Island. She would like to thank her friends and family for their constant support and inspiration. I am because you are.