#11 Nile Harris

STUDIO PROGRAM

We are excited to welcome Nile Harris as the new artist in residence at 99 Canal! He plans to use STUDIO 1 to rehearse and prepare for “minor b,” his upcoming large-scale performance project at The Shed premiering this August, 2024. 

He will be working with architect Marie de Testa to fabricate a series of sculptures that will become the set of this four person performance using the biography of early Jazz musician, Buddy Bolden, as a launching point into an inquiry on the "the syntax of Blackness". Over the course of his five month residency, Nile will also program events and studio activations using the space as a speculative hub for his performance company Social Security. 

Nile Harris is a performer and director of live works of art. Through performance, Harris creates immersive experiences that use the body on stage to manipulate one’s relationship to time and self perception. Core to his art is an interrogation of cultural histories and narratives that construct and enforce systems of power that make up “the American project”. Harris often employs improvisation, embracing its inherent relationship to failure, as a critical strategy of temporal transformation inside the apparatus of the theater. 

His performance this house is not a home explores absence, abjection, and American nationalism; paying homage to his childhood friend and late collaborator Trevor Bazile (1996-2021). The performance premiered at Abrons Arts Center, New York, NY, was co-commissioned and presented by Ping Chong and Company, and restaged as a part of the Under the Radar Festival in 2024.” 

Harris’ other works include testify (the worst is yet to come) performed in 2021 at the Under the Radar Festival in New York, NY, The Rise and Fall of the Huxtable Family in 2019 at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France, and A Monkey on One’s Back (Love Laboratory) performed in 2017 at The Watermill Center in Water Mill, New York.

99 CANAL

99 Canal is a project run by artists, for artists. Our residency program and public program seek to amplify artist perspectives and promote equitable access to studio spaces and experimental art practices in the heart of Chinatown, New York City.