Take Me to the Water is a spiritual moment through performance that pays homage to the sacred rite of passage of being baptized in the Black Church. Growing up in a Black community, Harrison Guy has what he likes to call “Bone Deep Memories.” These are lasting recollections of rich and profound experiences that are often directly related to the Black Church. Being a candidate for baptism in 1984 at the age of 8 is one of his Bone Deep Memories that was transformational and rests in his spirit as one of the most pivotal moments of his adolescent years. This performance uses music, dance, multimedia, and poetry to whisper to the waters and listen as it recalls.

Baptism is the religious rite of being immersed in water, symbolizing purification or regeneration. Historically African Americans performed this sacred ritual outdoors in bodies of water like rivers, bayous, and lakes. Today most modernized churches have indoor baptismal pools, which makes the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern the perfect stage for this performance. The Cistern is a former drinking water reservoir built in 1926 for the City of Houston’s drinking water storage. Its cavernous structure is designed to hold 15 million gallons of water creating an impressive 17-second echo, but its most remarkable feature is the water. And what it remembers.