SUMMER PERFORMANCE SERIES 2026

NICOLE ROSSI: DESIRE PATH

CHOREOGRAPHIC WORK: MEANWHILE, BY ANDREW SKEELS + PERFORMED BY LLOYD KNIGHT + JACQUELIN HARRIS

THU. JUNE 25, 7:30PM (RSVP)
THU. JULY 9, 7PM (RSVP)
SAT. JULY 25, 3PM (RSVP)
SAT. AUGUST 8, 3PM (RSVP)

INSTALLATION ON VIEW JUNE 26 — AUGUST 8, 2026

The fifth edition of CARVALHO’s acclaimed performance series opens with a living meadow, a verdant expanse sculpted by Nicole Rossi encasing the latest choreographic work by international choreographer Andrew Skeels. Titled Meanwhile and performed by two of contemporary dance’s most distinctive artists, Lloyd Knight (Principal with Martha Graham Dance Company) and Jacquelin Harris (of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater), the collaborative work brings choreography and landscape into dialogue, tracing parallel temporalities unfolding across bodies and environments. The installation opens the evening of June 25, from 6 – 9PM, with the debut performance at 7:30PM. 

Rossi's installation, Desire Path, recreates the natural world in miniature within the gallery, a composition of reeds, willows, verbena, hare's tail, and steel grasses. Taking its title from the informal routes forged through repeated passage in nature, the work considers how instinct, attraction, and need are made visible through repetition—movement becomes trace and intention finds form. As Knight and Harris return to the space across the six-week series, choreography and environment evolve in tandem. Here, the relationship between the performers and the landscape is not illustrative, but reciprocal—two distinct yet interconnected rhythms. Each undergoes its own process of change, neither serving as backdrop nor subject to the other.

Through the series, time becomes perceptible not as an abstract measure, but as a material force acting upon bodies, relationships, and living systems alike. Drawing from a relationship spanning two decades, Skeels' choreography moves through a fluid and intricately woven language, continually threading the performers together as their points of connection shift. As phrases return in altered forms, the duet reveals itself less as a narrative arc than as an accumulation of gestures, tensions, and shared memory. Through cycles of alignment and autonomy, what emerges is not a distilled definition of intimacy, but a layered portrait of connection—how it absorbs repetition, accommodates transformation, and persists through subtle change as it is lived.

Performance series are commissioned by CARVALHO, New York, and curated and produced by its founder, Jennifer Carvalho. The biannual series invites both visual and dance artists to reimagine their creative processes. It draws dance out of the theatre and into the collective consciousness, while bringing visual art into the realm of movement and performance—opening possibilities for both forms. Commissioned collaborations between performing and visual artists consider how disciplines are transformed through collaboration, as limitations are eclipsed, creating new intersectional approaches and total, synthesized works.

The performance is 20 minutes in length. Programming is free and open to the public, but due to the limited space, an RSVP is required: rsvp@carvalhonewyork.com

Andrew Skeels – Choreographer

Nicole Rossi – Installation Artist

Lloyd Knight – Performing Artist

Jacquelin Harris – Performing Artist

Jean-Sébastien Couture – Rehearsal Director

Jennifer Carvalho – Curator + Producer

Nicole Rossi is a Hudson Valley–based designer whose practice centers on sculptural installations composed of living and natural materials. Drawing on a foundation in architecture, she creates site-responsive environments that bring landscape into dialogue with the built environment, treating plants, flowers, and organic matter as dynamic materials rather than decorative elements. Her work explores scale, temporality, and embodied experience, transforming organic materials into evolving spatial compositions that foreground processes of growth, change, and impermanence. Installations by Rossi have been presented in partnership with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, IPSUM, and CARVALHO, New York; activated at the Barnes Foundation, Delaware Art Museum, and Philadelphia International Airport; and developed in collaboration with brands including Mothpaper and Terrain.

Andrew Skeels is a Montreal-based choreographer who has originated works for Ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Nederlands Dans Theater, Bavarian State Opera Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Cirque du Soleil, National Theatre Mannheim, Teatre ZinZanni, Théâtre de Suresnes Jean-Villar, Kansas City Ballet, and Colorado Ballet, among others. His production for the Théâtre de Suresnes won the Grand Prix de la Critique in Paris before a sold-out run at the Opéra Bastille, cementing him as one of the most original voices in contemporary dance. He previously danced with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, where he performed in the works of Jiří Kylián, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin, Marco Goecke, Stijn Celis, Didy Veldman, and Stephan Thoss. His choreographic language draws influence from his training as a film editor and applies a cinematic lens to his choreography. This performance series with CARVALHO marks Skeels’ New York debut.

Lloyd Knight joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2005, became a Principal Dancer in 2015 and performs leading roles of the Graham repertoire including Appalachian Spring, Embattled Garden, and Night Journey, among others. Knight was nominated for a Bessie Award in 2022 for Outstanding Performer, named by Dance Magazine as one of “Top 25 Dancers to Watch” in 2010, as well as one of the best performers of 2015. Knight has performed with ballet’s leading figures, such as Wendy Whelan and Misty Copeland in signature Graham duets, and has had roles created for him by such renowned artists as Nacho Duato and Pam Tanowitz. As a principal guest artist, Knight has performed for The Royal Ballet of Flanders directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, as well as with Twyla Tharp Dance. He was a 2023 Dance Research Fellow for The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and his one-person work The Drama debuted at The Guggenheim in January 2025.

Jacquelin Harris is a member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is a Princess Grace Foundation fellow. Harris received a silver ARTS award from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and was a Presidential Scholar in the Arts semifinalist. She graduated with honors from the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program before joining Alvin Ailey II and was invited into the main company in 2014. In 2016, Harris was named one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine. Harris has performed as a guest artist with Twyla Tharp, the Merce Cunningham Trust, and Roderick George.

For press inquiries, please contact Elisa Smilovitz at elisa@elisasmilovitz.com