Inside the Pillow Lab:
Shamel Pitts/TRIBE

Inside the Pillow Lab:
Shamel Pitts/TRIBE

December 10, 2020 at 7pm Eastern | Screened on YouTube

Shamel Pitts is a performance artist, choreographer, conceptual artist, dancer, spoken word artist, and teacher. During his residency, Pitts will develop the second piece in his RED series, Touch of RED. An intensely personal duet performed by Pitts with Tushrik Fredericks, Touch of RED addresses the power of vulnerability and offers its dancers, two Black men, space to soften. As Pitts and Fredericks meet in a performance space akin to a gladiator’s arena, heat between them builds, not from aggression but rather from a healing, electrifying effeminacy.

TRIBE is a New York City-based arts collective dedicated to creating, developing, and sharing multidisciplinary art projects and inspired by the afro-futuristic movement. Artistic Director Shamel Pitts is a Guggenheim Fellow (2020), NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow (2019), and Princess Grace Award winner (2018). Born in Brooklyn, Pitts studied dance at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, The Ailey School, and The Juilliard School before beginning his dance career in Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal. He went on to dance with the Batsheva Dance Company for seven years, under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin. Pitts was the choreographer for the play Help by poet and playwright Claudia Rankine, directed by Taibi Magar at The Shed in New York. TRIBE is a 92Y Harkness Dance Center Artist In Residence for the 2020-2021 season.

“Having access to the Pillow’s remote and focused environment, archives, housing, and the potential for a showing are each invaluable resources and opportunities for all of TRIBE, and we are incredibly grateful to have this support to nurture our work during these bizarre times.”
—Shamel Pitts

This event is produced in collaboration with