Saturday, March 15, 2025 8:00 PM
Power Center
Shamel Pitts | TRIBE
BLACK HOLE: Trilogy and Triathlon
$15-20 student tickets available
Founded in 2019 by American choreographer and performer Shamel Pitts, an alumnus of Batsheva Dance Company, TRIBE is an arts collective composed of international and local artists working across mediums to create a platform for artists of color.
The collective’s work is inspired by the Afrofuturism movement, which strives to tell new stories and create a brighter future that is different, and shines more luminously, from its past. In BLACK HOLE, three Black dancers share the stage in a narrative of unity, vigor, and unrelenting advancement. Their journey originates in the darkness of the titular Black Hole, understood not as a cosmic void but a metaphorical place of transformation and potential. Engulfed in an evocative soundscape of original music, sound samples, and spoken word, the dancers embark on an hour-long, uninterrupted journey in movement, in which their tenacity and grace are emphasized by cinematic video projections and stark, monochromatic lights, all performed to a score composed by U-M alumnus Sivan Jacobovitz. “Another person challenging the traditional views on Black masculinity is Shamel Pitts, one of the most acclaimed dancers/choreographers of his generation and a shining example of Black excellence.” (Afropunk)
Thank You to Our Sponsors
SUPPORTING SPONSOR
- Elaine Bennett
PATRON SPONSOR
- Karen Bantel and Steve Geiringer
FUNDED IN PART BY
- Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation
MEDIA PARTNERS
Shamel Pitts (Brooklyn, NY), a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, is a performance artist, choreographer, conceptual artist, dancer, spoken word artist, director, and teacher. Born in Brooklyn, NY, Pitts began his dance training at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and, simultaneously, at The Ailey School. He is a first prize winner in The National Arts Competition from YoungArts. Pitts went on to receive his BFA in dance from The Juilliard School and was awarded the Martha Hill Award for excellence in dance. He began his dance career in Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance and BJM_Danse Montreal. Pitts danced with Batsheva Dance Company for seven years under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin and is a certified teacher of Gaga movement language. Pitts has created a triptych of award-winning performances, with his multidisciplinary arts collective TRIBE, known as his “BLACK series,” as well as their newly emerging “RED series”, which has toured extensively to many festivals & performance spaces around the world since 2016. He is an adjunct professor at The Juilliard School, a guest faculty member at Princeton University, New York University, Wesleyan University and has been an artist in residence at Harvard University. He is the recipient of a Princess Grace Award in Choreography, a NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Choreography, Doris Duke Artist Award Recipient, Knight Choreography Prize Winner, a Jacob’s Pillow artist-in-residence, and a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. Shamel Pitts | TRIBE has been artist in residence at 92Y Harkness Dance Center and at New York Live Arts’ Live Feed Creative Residency.
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