Hi-ARTS WELCOMES 2026-27 COHORT WITH FOCUS ON SMALL CREATIVE TEAMS, SOLOS, AND DUETS
From left: Kevin Alicea; Elinor Kliber Diggs; Anichi Moon (Ching-I Chang); Camille Simone Thomas
BROOKLYN, NY, October 2026 — Hi-ARTS is thrilled to welcome Kevin Alicea, Elinor Kleber Diggs, Anichi Moon (Ching-I Chang), and Camille Simone Thomas as their 2026-27 Artists in Residence. Through CRITICAL BREAKS and SKY LAB, this group of Artists will spend the season experimenting, researching, and developing new work at Hi-ARTS.
This season, Hi-ARTS turns its attention to the possibilities of solo, duo, and quartet performance, bringing together projects spanning theater, movement, and performance. As CRITICAL BREAKS artists, Kevin Alicea, Elinor Kleber Diggs, and Anichi Moon (Ching-I Chang) will continue developing The Line, Oceans Between Our Names, and DUEL; and Camille Simone Thomas will concentrate on the research and development of Bad American. These works explore family, migration, memory, identity, love, connection, and abolition through distinct approaches. CRITICAL BREAKS is a residency program for artists who are in a pivotal phase of developing new theater and/or performance work. SKY LAB is a residency for artists who center the community in the development of their work.
At Hi-ARTS, CRITICAL BREAKS and SKY LAB residencies create space to follow and discover new work before it has taken its final form. Artists have time and space to ask questions, try things out, take risks, and discover what comes next. Throughout the season, audiences will have opportunities to experience these works as they take shape through our [WORK IN PROCESS] programming. Through this process-centered approach, Hi-ARTS continues to reimagine what artist support can look like when the process is valued as much as the final product. [WORK IN PROCESS] programming kicks off with Anichi Moon (Ching-I Chang) on Thursday, October 29th. Tickets start at $5. Find the schedule below and learn more hi-artsnyc.org
“This cohort reflects what we value most about artistic development at Hi-ARTS: creating the time, space, and resources for artists to follow an idea before they have to know exactly what it will become. Artists need permission to not be “finished” yet. We’re excited to support the experimentation that happens in the room, and to invite audiences into that process alongside the artists.” says Hi-ARTS Executive Director Aaron L. McKinney.
Kevin Alicea is an actor and director from St. Louis, Missouri, whose work spans theater, television, and directing. Alicea will develop The Line, a solo play in which one performer embodies a father and son—one a famed police officer and the other a passionate social justice advocate—as their relationship comes to a head during the shooting of an unarmed Black man.
Interdisciplinary artist and choreographer Elinor Kleber Diggs joins Hi-ARTS in the development of DUEL, an evening-length movement duet that transforms conflict into a catalyst for meaning-making and connection. At its center, DUEL explores the paradox of “love in tight spaces,” where interpersonal friction and argument move the characters towards eventual surrender and progress.
Anichi Moon (Ching-i Chang) and her movement team will concentrate on Oceans Between Our Names. The performative and meditative work explores migration, diaspora memory, and how displacement lives within the body over time. Using origami and paper boats as a metaphor for the body, the work traces journeys across oceans and generations, asking how memory mutates, survives, and transmits across generations.
Camille Simone Thomas is a multi-hyphenate (playwright, producer, performer, educator, and facilitator) whose work explores cultural legacies, familial healing, spirituality, and ancestral wisdom. Thomas will develop Bad American, a solo show and interactive retrospective tracing her journey toward abolition. She will interview people who consider themselves abolitionists and weave audio snippets from those conversations throughout the existing text.
2026-27 WORK IN PROCESS Programming
Learn more at hi-artnyc.org
Ocean Between Our Names, Anichi Moon [Ching-I Chang]
October 29, 2026 at 7pm
Tickets >>
Bad American, Camille Simone Thomas
February 25, 2027 at 7pm
Tickets >>
DUEL, Elinor Kelber Diggs
March 25, 2027 at 7pm
Tickets >>
The Line, Kevin Alicea
April 26, 2027 at 7pm
Tickets >>
About Hi-ARTS: Hi-ARTS was founded in 2000 as the Hip-Hop Theater Festival. Re-emerging as Hi-ARTS in 2011, we have been supporting artists for over twenty five years. While emphasizing process in all we do, Hi-ARTS is committed to creating an environment where artistic experimentation and process are valued and celebrated. Hi-ARTS primarily supports multidisciplinary artists working in the performing and/or visual arts, and who are at a pivotal moment in their career and/or creative practice. Through developmental artist residencies that place an emphasis on process rather than product/ion, Hi-ARTS provides artists with financial and administrative support, professional development, mentorship, time, and space — allowing artists to concentrate on the development of their work.
Hi-ARTS is supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Organizational support is provided by the Mellon Foundation; Howard Gilman Foundation; Scherman Foundation; Lily Auchincloss Foundation; The Shubert Foundation; Mosaic Network and Fund; The Hyde and Watson Foundation; Dance/NYC’s New York City Dance Rehearsal Space Subsidy Program, made possible by the Mellon Foundation; and Lucille Lortel Foundation.
Learn more about Hi-ARTS
hi-artsnyc.org • @hiartsnyc