this house is not a home
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.
Beginning Saturday as part of the Under the Radar festival, “This House” — sad and boisterous, dark yet at times blisteringly funny — will be reprised at Abrons Arts Center, where it was first presented with Ping Chong and Company last summer. (Harris is a member of Ping Chong’s artistic leadership team.)
A provocative look at politics and race, “This House” is a critique of the American experience that explores the intersections of modern-day liberalism, the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and well-meaning nonprofit arts institutions. It gets raucous. Will the bounce house survive this insurrection?
“This House” features the performance artist Crackhead Barney employing her daring crowd work; and the dancer Malcolm-x Betts, whose unfurling, out-of-body improvisations lend a vivid vulnerability to an increasingly fractious stage world. To Harris, the work is a play. But the “the play,” he said, “is the people. The play is about me, Malcolm and Barney and our thoughts on the world.”
BOUNCE FOR BLACK LIFE
BOUNCE FOR BLACK LIFE
Nile Harris
Creator, Director & Performer
Crackhead Barney, Malcolm-x Betts, Cricket Brown,
Tony Jenkins, Brandi Mckinnon
Performers
Sound Design by slowdanger & GENG PTP with additional process contributions by Akeema Zane
Dyer Rhoads
Dramaturg/Scenic and Effects Designer
Thom Weaver
Lighting Designer
Morgan Johnson
Stage Manager
Hasseim Muhammed
Fight Choreographer
Aminah Ibrahim
Project Manager
Costume Design by Victor Jeffreys II
with additional garments by Malcolm-x Betts