Performing arts & civic dialogue

Open Waters is a performance collaborative that aims to create opportunities for effective communication and cultural exchange through the production of theatrical events. Emphasizing participatory research and interdisciplinary approaches, Open Waters projects are grounded in arts-based civic dialogue and take place in diverse communities across the state of Maine.

Both an independent practice and a collaborative entity, Open Waters is administered by artist Jennie Hahn. It functions as a vessel to hold a collection of creative collaborations, both continuous and finite, between and among artists, community organizations, civic leaders, and individuals. 

in kinship collective

In Kinship Collective is Lilah Akins, Devon Kelley-Yurdin, Emilia Dahlin, Cory Tamler, Jennie Hahn, Darren Ranco, Tyler Rai. The collective emerged from the In Kinship Fellowship (2019-2021), a research and creation process that followed the tradition of Wabanaki Guiding. Connecting Native and non-Native people to place through experience, language, and story, In Kinship Fellowship activities were led by Penobscot Nation partners, our group learning situated to center Indigenous knowledge and experience. Fellowship members are now collaborating to create new interdisciplinary works in conversation and relationship with Wabanaki guides and watersheds.

The Archives & Performance Fellowship is a year-long research and creation process that follows the tradition of Wabanaki Guiding, connecting Native and non-Native people to place through experience, language, and story. Acknowledgements: Opening: Lilah Akins, In Kinship Fellow, sings the Penobscot Water Song during a Fellowship Team Check-In Call Video footage was captured by members of the Fellowship team including: Jennie Hahn, Cory Tamler, Lilah Akins, and Devon Kelley-Yurdin. Video footage of In Kinship Fellow Tyler Rai and Fellowship Co-Creators Darren Ranco and Jennie Hahn is extracted from the Fellowship team's weekly check-in calls and represent in-process group dialogue. Video footage represents activities led by the Penobscot Nation Cultural & Historic Preservation Department on a three-day canoe and cultural trip that included building a traditional Wabanaki hunting structure and tiny ash basket making. Guides on this trip included James Eric Francis, Sr., Jennifer Neptune, Chris Sockalexis, Ryan Kelley, and Darren Ranco. Video footage includes a group visit to view wiwenikan: the beauty we carry, an exhibition of Wabanaki art in Maine co-curated by Jennifer Neptune and Kathleen Mundell at the Colby College Museum of Art. Closing: Led by In Kinship Fellow Emilia Dahlin, the Fellowship group sings "Standing Stone", a song written by Melanie Demore.
collectively created by Lilah Akins, Devon Kelley-Yurdin, Emilia Dahlin, Cory Tamler, and Jennie Hahn for the Great Small Works Virtual Toy Theater Festival, presented July 2020.

*Banner image: In Kinship Fellowship Performance Gathering, September 11, 2021, pαnawάhpskewtəkʷ. Photo by Robyn Nicole Film and Photo.

“IN KINSHIP is not designed to address a single facet of environmental harm or manifestation of climate change for this river. Rather, it is an arts-based effort to help increase the resiliency of the system and everyone who is a part of it, to tell its many stories, to invest in recovery, and to shift the consciousness of its communities toward justness.”