The Company

TRIBE (TRI314 Multidisciplinary Visual Performances, Inc., d/b/a TRIBE), is a Brooklyn, New York based multidisciplinary arts collective founded by Shamel Pitts in December 2019. The arts collective, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is composed of international and local artists working across mediums such as movement, choreography, lighting design, video mapping projection, poetry, spoken word, painting, cinematography, scenography, dramaturgy, costume styling, and music composition. 

www.itsatribe.org – www.shamelpitts.com

PRESS KIT

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THE DIRECTOR

Shamel Pitts (Concept Director, Choreographer, Performer, Founding Artistic Director) 2020 Guggenheim Fellow Shamel Pitts is a performance artist, choreographer, conceptual artist, dancer, spoken word artist, and teacher. He is an adjunct professor at The Juilliard School and has been an artist in residence at Harvard University and New York University. He is the recipient of a 2018 Princess Grace Award in Choreography, a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Award winner in Choreography, a 2020 Jacob’s Pillow artist in residence and a 2021 New York Dance Award winner (The Bessies). Shamel is the Founding Artistic Director of TRIBE, a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary arts collective. TRIBE is a 92Y Harkness Dance Center’s Artist In Residence for the 2020-2021 season. Shamel Pitts | TRIBE is also a New York Live Arts Live Feed artist in residence. 

Touch of RED teaser

BLACK HOLE TEASER

INSIDE the PILLOW LAB – Creating Touch of RED

BLACK HOLE MINIDOC

LAKE OF RED (2020)

REPERTORY

TOUCH OF RED – NDP tour support available through December 2027

Touch of RED is a new duet of two men that will take place inside of a contemporary ring. Its research will deal with the allowance of black men to soften; the power in vulnerability; the meeting point of two individuals within a boxed space that references a futuristic and voyeuristic gladiator entertainment site in which a heat path between the two performers builds not out of aggression or combat but within an enhanced electrifying effeminacy that heals.

Bold. Boiled. Blood.

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BLACK HOLE: TRILOGY AND TRIATHLON (BLACK HOLE) 

In BLACK HOLE, a trio of Black performers (all of African heritage) shares 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. BLACK HOLE’s creation had the Afrofuturism movement as its biggest inspiration. The project marks the initial meeting between choreographer Shamel Pitts and the artists of TRIBE.

“The whole hourlong work, the final installment in a trilogy with ‘Black Box’ and ‘Black Velvet’, is curiously stylish and sincere, glossily cold and tender. Always visually striking, it’s never dull. But it transpires at a distance.” 

–The New York Times 

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IN DEVELOPMENT

SOLACE OF RED

A performance art residency incubator initiated by TRIBE’s Artistic Director Shamel Pitts, Solace of RED intertwines different art languages to create one live performance experience.
Solace of RED is a project of cultivating space to create a platform for TRIBE artist’s singular works. This residency provides space for each artist’s voice to be expressed while finding solace in sharing the weight of the creative practice alongside one another. TRIBE aims to extend this work with a multitude of different artists ranging various mediums and locations. From this, the work will re-birth itself throughout TRIBE’s lifetime, as new artists cycle through the kaleidoscopic creative process, led by Pitts, to find solitude, creativity, and solidarity.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND RESIDENCIES

SHAMEL PITTS — GAGA/PEOPLE + GAGA/DANCERS CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS Shamel Pitts is a certified Gaga movement instructor since 2010, teaching Gaga with institutions, companies, and centers all over the world.

TUSHRIK FREDERICKS — MOVEMENT WORKSHOP Tushrik’s work continues to research and push the boundaries of the limits that ‘man’ has placed on himself when it comes to rigor on the body and mind which blurs the fine line between sanity and insanity, thus resulting in a highly physical practice which pushes the limits of the psyche.Drawing information from many different movement techniques, this practice consists of physical research which pushes durational studies which then informs how the physical being relates to the mental being. The research feels highly sacred as well as spiritual in the way that we relate to the world and all things around and inside us. Tushrik believes that it takes pushing the body to extreme physical boundaries so that we may reach moments of bliss by breaking beyond those boundaries and connecting to our higher purpose.

MARCELLA LEWIS — MOVEMENT ALCHEMY is a movement language Lewis created and has been investigating for 2 years. It is the art/process/practice of transmuting something from one form to its higher more evolved form through movement; using water, fire earth, air and spirit–all elements we have within us.

TOUR DATES

GALLERY