studio program_Nile Harris
March - August, 2024
Introducing Nile Harris(@nileharris), who will be working in 99 Canal’s STUDIO 1 to rehearse and prepare for “minor b,” his upcoming large-scale performance project at The Shed premiering this August, 2024.
Nile 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.
Hosted by Performance Talks at 99 Canal, Nile sat down with Jeanette Bisschops and David Velasco to discuss the book ‘Sarah Michelson’ from MoMA’s Modern Dance series. As a part of our 2025 5x5 programming, Nile will perform a cold reading in collaboration with Alex Tatarsky, sharing diaristic digital communications from the past few years.
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.
“MALCOLM-X BETTS & ARIEN WILKERSON with Candice Thompson,” THE BROOKLYN RAIL, 2025
““Very Demure, Very Mindful”: A Ten- Minute Cig With Performer Nile Harris,” Interview, 2024
“In a Land of Primary Colors, Home Is Where the Bounce House Is,” The New York Times, 2024
“In Temporary Boyfriend, Permanent Lasting Power from Nile Harris and Malcolm-x Betts,” THE BROOKLYN RAIL, 2024
“Open Call: Nile Harris,” THE SHED, 2024
“Nile Harris and Crackhead Barney on Art and Exploitation,” Interview, 2023
Studio Program | 99 Canal
The Studio Program is a one to three-month opportunity for emerging and mid-career artists based both within and outside New York City.
Collaborating with artists, galleries, and institutions, our selection process draws on the insights of the local creative community to ensure a continuously diverse and vibrant studio cohort.
The program initially launched in 2022 as a response to the lack of affordable spaces in Manhattan and provides access to an intimate and context-specific environment to work in.
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