Student Artist-in-Residence Ghina Fawaz presents: Watermelon Boy (a work-in-progress showing)
Saturday, April 19th | 7:00 PM
Sunday, April 20th | 4:00 PM
Sunday, April 20th | 7:00 PM
Location: Barnard Movement Lab (Milstein Center LL020) 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Watermelon Boy is a hybrid of fantastical storytelling and documentary theatre devised by Ghina Fawaz, Chaesong Kim, and Anuka Sethi, asking two central questions: What does it mean to become the symbol of resistance? How do we write history as it unfolds around us? Integrating animation, projection, and archival media into an immersive performance, Watermelon Boy tells the story of a boy living under occupation who transforms into a watermelon after consuming the seed of the forbidden fruit. Through this imaginative story, Watermelon Boy weaves Chaesong, Ghina, and Anuka’s distinct yet intrinsically linked backgrounds as Arab, Korean, and Indian artists, shaped by histories of colonization and ongoing struggles against systemic oppression.
Written by Ghina FawazDirected by 김채송 / Chaesong Kim
Produced by Anuka Sethi
Performed by Anuka Sethi, 김채송 / Chaesong Kim and Ghina Fawaz
Production Managed by Zoe Feng
Stage Managed by Fuyuan Zheng
Lighting Designed by Ari Kim
Projection Designed by Etzu Shaw
Animation by Ghina Fawaz
Technical Direction by Anthony Sertel Dean
Doors open 20 minutes before showtimes.
Please RSVP at least 24 hours before the event so we can provide security with the guest list and ensure your entry onto campus. A valid ID is required. Visitors with Barnard/Columbia IDs may enter freely.
Capacity is limited to 25 audience members.
We look forward to sharing Watermelon Boy with you! If you have any questions, please email movement@barnard.edu.
Ghina Fawaz (She/Her) is a Lebanese-American director/writer/artist whose work explores the intersections of art and activism through folklore, fairytales, and ethnographic research to amplify underrepresented voices. Her work aims to nurture creative resistance: Antlers, developed after interviewing Lebanese people about war and occupation, spun resilient oral histories into a fantastical theatrical journey through puppetry; her Three Sisters adaptation reimagined Chekhov’s characters as refugees trapped in an airport, eternally awaiting their flight to Moscow that never comes; and Moonwake, developed with collaborators Dr. Hilary Cooperman and Tiara Ashurt through interviews with BIPOC+ college students, crafted an interactive site-specific performance exploring racial trauma and microaggressions at predominantly white institutions. Fawaz has directed works by Meg Ledford (Conservation of Matter), Andrew Reid (Here, Time Feels So...), and Dacyl Acevedo (From One Token to Another). She is looking forward to developing her next project, Watermelon Boy, at the Movement Lab as a Student Artist in Residence.