this house is not a home
About the Production
A frenzied rant of online logic delivered outside an inflatable mausoleum, Nile Harris' this house is not a home surrounds a bounce castle purchased by Harris' friend, interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker Trevor Bazile (born Miami, FL, 1996-2021). Over the course of the performance, the castle comes to represent an ephemeral monument, a besieged U.S. capital, and a simulacrum of hollow liberal care.
this house is not a home extends from Harris and Bazile’s collaboratively created, live-Google-document-based ‘you niggas in trouble’ manifesto (2020), a metaphorical board meeting that asked: will the revolution have 501c3 status? In and around the sound-responsive plastic shrine, this house is not a home situates this question within the detritus of the past two years—in bitter inheritance, fugitive avatars, political theater, Tucker Carlson redacted texts, and the cleansing of money through arts philanthropy.
Figures—a gingerbread minstrel, Dimes Square vape addicts, a beloved children’s movie cowboy—appear, haunted by the fraught question: what does it mean to be an American? Enlivened by collaborators Crackhead Barney and Malcolm-x Betts, and featuring sonic composition by slowdanger and GENG PTP, this house is not a home uses clowning and live-mixed sound scoring to enact a memorial in an “Incellectual” spew of discourse.
Production Team And Cast
Director and Performer
Nile Harris
Set Design
Dyer Rhoads
Lighting Design
Thom Weaver
Sound Design
slowdanger and GENG PTP
Stage Manager
Morgan Johnson
Cast
Nile Harris, Malcolm X. Betts, Crackhead Barney, Cricket Brown, Brandi McKinnon, Tony Jenkins
Project Manager (Premiere)
Aminah Ibrahim
Performance History
Premiere
Abrons Art Center, New York, NY (July 2023)
Remount
Under the Radar Festival, New York, NY (January 2024)
Partners
Abrons Arts Center
Funders
this house is not a home is co-commissioned by Abrons Arts Center and Ping Chong and Company, with funding from Abrons Arts Center’s Performance AIRspace Residency which is supported by the Jerome Foundation. Additionally, the premiere of this work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by the Jerome Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. this house is not a home is a recipient of the 2022 MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and Mellon Foundation.
Related Media
Black Code Studies from Nile Harris on Vimeo.