お茶の水　Like Water for Tea - Extended Version

For the University of Alabama - Blount Scholars Program - Senior Thesis 12/2025

The title, オ茶の水 (Ochanomizu) ー Like Water for Tea, is the name of a Japanese train station. Ochanomizu Station (御茶ノ水前) located in the midst of many colleges, music streets, and business centers in Tokyo, is full of people in transit – a liminal space between where people have been and where they are going. I used this train station many times this summer, and was often fascinated by its name. Directly translated, Ochanomizu means tea’s water. The city and the station are named such because of the land’s historically rich water, brought up from deep wells, which was used to make tea for royalty. Though many waters can be used to make tea, each water brings its own specific flavor. It can be said that, even after being steeped in other teas, we will always hold the flavor of the well’s depths from which we come.
Proverbs 22:6.

Choreographed & Directed by Anna Gardner Herren

Young Jade: Emmie Sheets
Jade: Anna Gardner Herren
Young Jasmine: Katherine Williams
Jasmine: Anna Freeman

Videographer: Ainsley Greer
Technical Director: Addison Rosen
Photographer: Angela Blake
Lighting Technician: Princeton McCurtain
Sound Technician: Harold Hestevold

Corps de Ballet:
Katie Cipriano
Breland Sansing
Lucy Sanda
Ava Blake
Kirsten Caraway
Emily Griffeth
Xaria Holt
Adrianna Kuhn
Allie Howard
Sophie Davis
Madison Syx
Erin Wilbanks

Music: Epidemic Sound