Introducing the 2024 black/water Cohort

black/water 2024

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black/water 2024 〰️

It is with great excitement that Jupiter Performance Studio announces the Harlem cohort of black/water. Please welcome…

Phakiso “Kiki” Collins

Jennifer Ligaya Senecal

Lei'anna Gladden

Azusa “SheShe” Dance

Sierra Leverett

Mariama Eversley

Ebony Webster

Hover over each photo to read participant bios.

Click on photo to visit social media.

Sierra Leverett

Sierra is a talented Phoenician actress, singer, and dancer who has captivated audiences in Brooklyn, New York, for just over a decade. Her love for theatre was ignited with classic musical theater and has since evolved to encompass avant-garde works and groundbreaking workshop processes that delve into the depths of Black and queer narratives that speak to her personal interests and expansive abilities. Her ambition extends beyond the stage, as Sierra hopes to embark on touring shows and expand her impact as a visionary curator and producer.

Azusa "SheShe" Dance

SHESHE, as unique & commanding as her name,  steps proudly into her destiny mapped by the stars of her ancestors with intention. She's a 2016 replanted New Yorker, hailing from "the scenic city of the south" Chattanooga,  TN. A soulful vocalist inspired by BLACK music, lyrics & poetry, SHESHE executes with joy & passion.

Lei'anna Gladden

Le'ianna Nicole is a southern black woman storyteller weaving stories through film, poetry, theatre, and photography. She seeks to intimately explore the lived experiences of Black women across the Afro-Diaspora creating havens of collective healing and empowerment. Through her work, she hopes to explore black ancestral memory, contribute to liberation movements, uncover/dismantle systems of oppression, and live in the duality of black joy and rage, all while creating bastions of healing. Le'ianna received her Bachelor of Arts (2020) from Winthrop University where she majored in Theatre Performance and minored in Film/Content Production. During her time at Winthrop Le'ianna performed in mainstage and black box productions, she directed countless short documentaries and stage productions. While studying abroad in Ghana, (2018) Le'ianna made her directorial debut in partnership with the Drama Queens Collective and the African Women's Development Fund, Le'ianna directed their winter production of For Colored Girls. Beyond the art she creates, Le'ianna is a lover of nature, words, all things black culture, astrology, beaches, and chicken wings!

Phakiso "Kiki" Collins

Phakiso is an executive producer/movement artist, homegrown in Greensboro, NC, residing in BK. She's provided creative vision and leadership to some of the country’s top production companies in her 20 year television career, most recently as VP at MTVE Studios overseeing multiple projects projects, including Smithosonian’s Origins of Afrofuturism documentary and VH1’s Love & Hip Hop franchise. Phakiso has centered much of her work on expanding the narrative from which we see and advocating for stories and production sets that humanize, entertain and uplift. As a facilitator, Yoga teacher, and artist, she’s founded several initiatives that educate and aliven people in their bodies, desires, and power; sharing in living rooms, NYC schools, Duke University’s ADF, Boston Institute of Contemporary Arts, Connecticut College, BRIC Studio, Senegal, Ghana, and more. My mission is to create more safe spaces for liberation fully embod(y)ed; through media, movement, wellness advocacy, and the erotic.

Mariama Eversley

With a background in anthropology and human geography Mariama works at the intersection of investigation, organizing, documentation, and art. She is motivated by a variety of issue areas including climate justice, land stewardship and defense, gender liberation, and global decolonization. Her independent research projects have explored gentrification, decolonizing development and the history of settler colonialism in the United States. As an archivist-organizer-investigator, Mariama is dedicated to fusing art and research to expose and challenge structural violence as well as create portals of remembrance and liberation. As a shamanic apprentice, Mariama is continuously stretching into a multidimensional consciousness that supports the healing, stewardship, and harmony of the earth mother/ourselves.

Jennifer Ligaya Senecal

Jennifer Ligaya is an AfroPinay sound & performance composer and artist scholar born and raised in Chicago with an interdisciplinary background in visual art, vocal performance, dance, and theater. Mother to a Scorpio son, graduate of the MA in Interdisciplinary Art program at Columbia College in Chicago, and PhD student of Performance Studies at Northwestern University, her original work includes solo and collaborative performance compositions and sound installations. A sponsored artist, grant recipient, and commissioned multimedia artist, her compositions amplify critical conversations around identity, liberatory practices, ancestral indigenous knowledge systems, and moments of communal healing, through the weaving of traditional and contemporary sound, performance, and personal ancestral folk arts practices. Core member of Honey Pot Performance, Ligaya’s research interests sit at the intersections of sound, movement, and performance studies, along with the incorporation of Southern Studies and Womanist Theory. Her current creative practice explores Afro-Asian feminist subjectivities and speculative arts, indigenous healing and survival practices, and the genealogies of anticolonial spiritual-political resistance.

Ebony Noelle Golden

black/water course facilitator and designer.

Short Biography

Ebony Noelle Golden is a theatrical ceremonialist, culture strategist, entrepreneur, and public scholar. In 2009, Ebony founded Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, a culture consultancy that devises systems, strategies, and social justice solutions nationally. In 2020, she founded Jupiter Performance Studio, a space to study and practice Black diasporic performance traditions. Winner of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Transformational Practice Award, Golden works to incite and ignite the creative capacity of everyday folks in service of liberation and collective wellbeing. Her practice is rooted in community-design, ritual performance, and leadership development through a womanist and Black feminist praxis. Invoking messy, magical, and medicinal processes, Ebony and her collaborators, work to conjure a better world. www.bettysdaughterarts.com IG: @ebonynoellegolden

Ebony Webster

Ebony Webster, is an Afro Caribbean American, all encompassing, all embracing, all inclusive, womb being, belonging to first thyself as God, and then God themselves. A movement performance artist and holistic alchemist, answering the call to give back all learnings and create by leading the ascension of the collective consciousness into the new paradigm. Choosing dance and the body as the portal. In this season of creative expression, Ebony is exploring, black liberation, afro-futurism, multidimensional spirituality, being quiet, and being loud. Ebony holds a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography, Certified by Msinga Wuti to teach Umfundalai on a community level, NASM certified trainer and currently (holds 200 hours) on her way to a 500 hour yoga alliance recognized yoga teacher.

black/water: Worlding, Wilding, and Wandering as EcoWomanist Praxis, offers an experiential exploration of environmentally-conscious, performance devising and sacred site activation. The course builds on Golden's current field work, ritual art practice, and cultural organizing efforts. Admitted students will explore a range of topics including theatrical ceremony, womanist spirituality, ritual poetics, and collective approaches to climate reparations. The course features lectures, workshops, readings, viewings, and fieldwork in HARLEM and beyond. Each participant will be required to complete an individual and a group project, along with required readings, writing, performances, and field trips. 

Virtual and in-person session are available for a drop in rate. All are welcome. Learn more about black/water here.

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black/water is an element of JPS’ Watering (W)hole Engagement Cosmology composed of fieldwork interventions, conversations, theatrical ceremonies, festivals fellowship installations, and multimedia activations. Led by Ebony Noelle Golden, this cultural organizing efforts, shares systems, strategies stories, and ceremonies centering an EcoWomanist approach to sustainability, environmental justice and climate reparations. Support our ongoing work by donating at jupiterperformancestudio.com.