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EPHEMERAL SOLACE (IN PASSING): Featuring Nicola Turner, Taylor Stanley + Alec Knight

Company:
CARVALHO PARK

CARVALHO PARK's acclaimed performance series returns with a commissioned work by ascendent UK-based sculptor and installation artist, Nicola Turner, with New York City Ballet principal, Taylor Stanley, and soloist, Alec Knight. Performed on three occasions, Stanley and Knight engage Turner’s imposing, site-responsive installation, Fabric of Undoing, at CARVALHO PARK’s 110 Waterbury St. gallery. The dancers, who were recently featured in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, Works and Process program, will expand on these investigations through their engagement with this new work, titled Ephemeral solace (in passing).

Turner’s Fabric of Undoing comprises a series of upward-reaching dark, knotted forms created by compressed tendrils of “dead matter,” of salvaged horsehair and wool, material of preserved dreams and archived desires. Stanley and Knight view the writhing sculptures as embodying the dualities of human connection—a protective shield, for instance, that can also suffocate. Taking its cues from the texture of materials, sense of touch, and gestures found within the work, Ephemeral solace (in passing) is a meditation on what it means to be rooted in someone else. 

Choreography catalyzed by the Fabric of Undoing is led by touch rather than visual language, and considers a circular perspective, a new approach for the duo. Stanley and Knight move through the space and interact viscerally with the installation. They shift weight gently and subtly, twisting and folding, moving within one another. Their bodies mimic the materials, creating tension and release, breaking and returning. They purposely insert disruptions by obscuring and revealing themselves to the viewer and rearranging the installation, offering a different experience depending on one’s perspective in the gallery, and which performance one attends.

For the first time, Stanley and Knight have choreographed onto one another—echoed in their process are the themes of the performance. Instead of focusing on the strongest features in each dancer’s own eyes, Stanley and Knight take the approach of “how I see you, how you see me, how we see each other,” allowing for differences in perception, curiosity, and vulnerability, reflective of their journey together. As seen in the first sequence of Stanley’s choreography, a solo for Knight is meditative, quiet, but seeks attention. Meanwhile, when Stanley is ready, they make themselves known with movements that support the duo, then seems to say, “I don’t know if I can keep carrying you.” Together, the performance and installation move through the personal complexities inherent in interconnectedness.    

The performance series is commissioned by CARVALHO PARK, New York, and curated by Director, Jennifer Carvalho.

The program is approximately 20 minutes, and is free and open to the public, but due to limited space, an RSVP is required via the links above, or to rsvp@carvalhopark.com.

Taylor Stanley, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, began their dance studies at The Rock School in Philadelphia. After entering the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, in 2008, Stanley became an apprentice with the Company in 2009, and joined as a member of the corps de ballet in 2010. They were promoted to soloist in 2013 and to principal dancer in 2016.  They have performed leading roles in works by renowned choreographers George Balanchine, Peter Martin, Jerome Robbins, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon, and have originated roles under choreographers such as Justin Peck, Lauren Lovette, and Kyle Abraham.  

Outside of New York City Ballet, Stanley has worked with leading choreographers including Jodi Melnick, Andrea Milner, Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa, Liz Gerring, Pam Tanowitz, Kim Brandstrup, Christopher Williams, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Reiner, Shamel Pitts, and Omar Roman de Jesus. In 2024, they and Alec Knight were invited by the Guggenheim Museum, New York, to present a joint choreographic project in the Museum’s Works and Progress program. Stanley is the recipient of a Bessie in 2019 and Janice Levin Dancer Award in 2011–12.

Alec Knight, born in Queensland, Australia, began his dance training at The Australian Ballet School. In 2013, entered the School of American Ballet (SAB) in New York City, and in 2015, he was honored with the Martin E. Segal Award, recognizing his exemplary achievements as a young artist. That same year, he became an apprentice with the New York City Ballet (NYCB) and joined the corps de ballet in 2016. Knight was promoted to soloist in 2024.

Throughout his tenure with NYCB, he has performed leading roles in works by renowned choreographers such as George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins’s, Justin Peck, and Pam Tanowitz. In 2024, he and Taylor Stanley were invited by the Guggenheim Museum, New York, to present a joint choreographic project in the Museum’s Works and Progress program, inspired by Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, the culmination of two Works and Process LaunchPAD residencies at Modern Accord Depot.

Nicola Turner is a sculptor and installation artist based in Bath, UK. She holds a MA in Fine Art from Bath Spa University, Bath (2019) and a BA in Theatre Design from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London (1989). With a background in set and costume design, Turner has over twenty years of international collaborations, designing productions for The Royal Opera House, London; San Francisco Opera; Scottish Ballet; Royal Shakespeare Company; Nashville Ballet; National Theatre; and Sydney Opera House, where she was the recipient of the Green Room Award and Helpmann Award.

In 2024, her monumental, site-responsive sculpture, The Meddling Fiend, debuted in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Recent solo exhibitions include The Fabric of Undoing, CARVALHO PARK, New York; The Uninvited Guest from the Unremembered Past at the Tyntesfield National Trust House, North Somerset, UK (2024); and Myth and Miasma at the Skaftfell Centre for Visual Arts, Iceland (2022). Group exhibitions include those with Bomb Factory, London (2024); Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury, UK (2024); RWA Open, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK (2024); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2024); Sir Hilliers Gardens, Romsey, UK (2024); and at Llantarnam Grange, Cwmbran, Wales (2024). Turner is a recipient of the RWA Academy Award, granted by the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol, UK; the Developing your Creative Practice (DCYP) Grant; the Emerging Sculptors Development Award from Chapel Arts Studios (CAS); and Roche Court Educational Trust.

CARVALHO PARK (est. 2019) A synthesis of the directors’ backgrounds in performing arts (Carvalho) + architecture (Park) informs a distinct point-of-view that shapes the gallery’s cross-disciplinary program, privileging the sensorial experience of the art object and space. CARVALHO PARK features international emerging and mid-career artists whose practices reconsider distinctions of increasingly fluid categorization – of the visual art, performing art, and craft realms – through dedicated inquiry and meticulous approaches to material and process. Exhibitions work to activate the viewer’s environment, expanding space for engagement and discourse between disciplines. At the close of 2023, on the cusp of its five-year anniversary, CARVALHO PARK expanded its galleries into the adjacent building, doubling its exhibition space and program. The second gallery focuses on installation and performance, echoing the directors’ foundations, and allowing artists to realize more ambitious collaborations and projects.