Category: Shamel Pitts | TRIBE

‘“I initially had such adverse reactions to the idea of boxing. Watching it on TV, I just couldn’t see the entertainment value of it. So instead of looking away, I started to look towards it. And when I did that, there were moments, I call them blurred moments, that I wasn’t sure if the two…

‘”With Touch of RED, I tried to create a space where we as Black men — and me as a Black queer man — get to be soft and have that be met with qualities of empowerment,” he says. “I’ve always felt like a bit of an outlier with my sensitivity, softness, and vulnerability. No…

‘Boxing is a major inspiration for Touch of RED. Shamel went from being confounded by the violent sport’s appeal, to exploring it as a metaphor for the layered, often unacknowledged connections between two Black men. In this case, two gay Black men. “Things I don’t understand I try to go further towards,” he says. “What…

Read the full article here.

‘As founder and director of Tribe, a multidisciplinary arts collective, Pitts has created a trilogy of works built on Gaga, which is essentially a way of developing one’s unique way of moving. “Black Hole” is the third installment of the trilogy. Pitts describes it as a performance-art odyssey that includes movement, lighting, video projections, cinematography…

‘Black Hole is a work of magical realism. Where was this land? Where did they come from? What path were they on? Was this source an entity of goodness or harm? This piece was riddled with questions, but the good kind you feel being answered viscerally in front of you while allowing yourself not to…

‘ “Black Hole” draws upon universal images and activities of deep memory and refracts them through a lens of awe-evoking technology to create a generative space—a place where the past, present, and future of what it is to be black is utterly reimagined.’ – Karen Greenspan Read the full article here.

‘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.’ – New York Times Read the full article here.

“BLACK HOLE – Trilogy and Triathlon is a multidisciplinary performance choreographed by the award-winning movement artist Shamel Pitts, co-created and performed by his Brooklyn-based arts collective TRIBE.” Read the full article here.