the process series

Opening our Rounding Home 18th Season is Aviva Neff’s Blood Earth Water, a performance of identity and self discovery. Blood Earth Water unites historical language, physical theatre, and autobiography to depict the lush and complicated experience of being mixed-Black in contemporary America. This solo performance was inspired by the author’s travels, ancestry, and particular brand of suburban angst. Conjure the past, present, and future as we explore the age-old question: “What are you?”

​

According to creator Aviva Neff , “Blood Earth Water is a show about America and how people like me—a mixed race daughter of an immigrant—find our home in this complicated tapestry of culture. It is a tribute to my ancestral lineage and the path that I am forging for future generations.”

​

Joseph Megel, Artistic Director of the Process Series notes that one of our newest colleagues in Performance Studies, Irina Kruchinina, brought this work to the Process Series.

​

According to Kruchinina, “Aviva has built intricate ethnographic research into a deliberately crafted script for a self-directed performance. I was struck by how her poetry empowered her voice when she read an excerpt from her script during a conference presentation. The intensity of her engagement with the invisible stories, to which she gave such a moving voice, made me wish for audiences to have a chance to see the fully-embodied scope these narratives could take on stage. And for more people to see this work.”

​

Megel adds, “The exploration of intersectional identities is a subject often explored in the Series. This work interrogates how our individual experiences point to our shared humanity.”

​

In reengaging with this piece, created four years ago, Neff notes, “Writing this play and returning to it, has been a true testament to how much we grow and change in such a short period of time. I look at the way I framed certain things—politics, self-identification, family, friendship—and it feels completely different! That’s exciting for me, getting to work alongside the self I used to be and continue to change the work alongside my own internal change. It’s about externalizing my growth and I can’t wait for audiences to share what resonates with them.”

​

Aviva Neff is an honors graduate of the College of Wooster (BA, American History) and Goldsmiths College (MA, Applied Theatre). Dr. Neff enjoys working in devised theatre and theatre for social change with participants aged 1-100. While earning her Ph.D. at the Ohio State University, Dr. Neff enjoyed supporting community-engaged work in Columbus and nurtured her passion for arts centric learning while leading the Department of Youth & Community Learning at Columbus College of Art and Design. Dr. Neff frequently works as an intimacy coordinator and director in the Columbus theatre community and enjoys blending her passion for teaching with a vision for equitable rehearsal and performance spaces. She is an ensemble member with Teatro Travieso, which premiered her solo performance, Blood, Earth, Water in 2021. Dr. Neff has recently published works on mediatized race and identity, mixed-Black women in Reconstruction-era New Orleans, and inclusive theatre pedagogy

​

Our Sponsors

Our 28th season is based in the Department of Communication, supported by StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, and is co-sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and these UNC Departments and Programs: American Studies, Art and Art History, Communication, Creative Writing, Dramatic Art, English and Comparative Literature, Music, and Philosophy.

About the Process Series

Dedicated to the development of new and significant works in the performing arts, The Process Series features professionally mounted, developmental presentations of new works in progress. The mission of the Series is to illuminate the ways in which artistic ideas take form, examine the creative process, and offer audiences the opportunity to follow artists and performers as they explore and discover. Immediately following each performance, we ask our audiences to join in the creative process, providing feedback critical to the development of the work as it moves forward. Most performances are free and open to the public.