World Premiere Of THE ESSENTIALISN'T is Coming to HERE Arts Center
Performances will run from September 10- 28.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jul. 28, 2025
HERE Arts Center will present the World Premiere of The Essentialisn't, a new performance art piece written and performed by Obie Award-winner Eisa Davis September 10-28. The full cast and creative team will be announced at a later date.
Can you be Black and not perform? Incorporating art gallery aesthetics with an electronic soul score, THE ESSENTIALISN'T is a performance about performance, exploring the cultural techniques that make musical expression a kind of imprisonment-or a transcendent liberation.
In this rebellious piece driven by original, pulsing music, Eisa Davis troubles the obligations that a Black woman's body has to perform, rejecting the philosophy of essentialism-the idea that people can be categorized by an unchanging essence or set of qualities they inherently possess. Davis creates porous, evocative imagery through the use of striking set elements, such as transforming the space into a white box and singing in a tank of water. Drawing on diasporic traditions that form a continuum between the past and the present, The Essentialisn't challenges audiences to destabilize their own unconscious ways of perceiving themselves and others.
"We are incredibly excited and honored that in our first season of programming as new Co-Directors of HERE, we get to uplift the work of an artist such as Eisa Davis," said HERE Co-Directors Lanxing Fu and Annalisa Dias. "She is a creator of kaleidoscopic talent, driven by deep integrity. She embodies the courageous artistry and liberatory imagination that is core to the ethos of HERE."
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