Photo by Itai Zwecker
Shamel Pitts, a 2024 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, 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 multidisciplinary performances, with his arts collective TRIBE, known as his “BLACK 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 Artist Fellow, a Jacob’s Pillow artist-in-residence, and a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.
Founded in 2019, TRIBE- Multidisciplinary Visual Performances is a Brooklyn-based Afrofuturistic arts collective dedicated to creating, producing, and sharing original art projects. Understanding that performance art and live art are practices of human connection, TRIBE projects include, but are not restricted to: movement-based work, live performance, video art, short film, video documentary, photography, exhibition, installation, commissioned dance choreography, art residencies, and workshops. With Artistic Direction by Shamel Pitts, TRIBE acts nationally and internationally developing art exchanges in collaboration with institutions and individuals, with a focus on the African diaspora. Ultimately, TRIBE aims to bring the audience and community into experiences that humanizes Black and Brown bodies and shares the colorfulness within Blackness that allows us to be multiplicitous.
Tushrik Fredericks (he/him) recipient of the Princess Grace Award (Chris Hellman dance honor), nominated by TRIBE (Founding artistic director, Shamel Pitts) in 2021 is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa. Growing up he found himself drawn toward the style ‘KRUMP‘. He graduated from the Peridance Certificate Program in NYC in June 2015 and has had the opportunity to work with Ate9 dANCEcOMPANY (Danielle Agami, Artistic Director), Sidra Bell Dance New York (Sidra Bell, Artistic Director) and UNA Productions (Chuck Wilt). Fredericks was an assistant lecturer to Sidra Bell at The University of the Arts Philadelphia for Sophomore students (2016-2018). In May 2021 Fredericks received 3rd prize for dance at the SoloTanz Festival in Stuttgart for his first rendition of his self-choreographed solo '(territory) of the heart' and in May 2023 he showcased the completed rendition of the solo at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn, NY. Fredericks also received the Baryshnikov Arts Open Fall 2023 residency for a co-choreographed duet with Rebecca Margolick.
Photo by Elizah Thornberry
Marcella Lewis (she/her) hails from Los Angeles, California where she began her dance training at the Lula Washington Dance Theatre. She then continued her studies at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA). She later received her BFA from the Purchase Conservatory of Dance in 2016, where she was awarded the Adopt-A-Dancer Scholarship. Marcella joined A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in fall 2016, as a dancer, soloist, and company liaison. While with A.I.M, she performed works by Kyle Abraham, Trisha Brown, Doug Varone and Andrea Miller. Marcella was featured with A.I.M in “Dance Magazine” in August 2017 and was a recipient of the 2018 Princess Grace Award in Dance. As a freelance artist, Marcella has performed works by Marjani Forte, Chris Emile, Micaela G. Taylor, Rosana Taverez, Genna Moroni, JA Collective and Jodi Melnick. Marcella has presented her own choreographic works at Dance Theatre Lab, Odyssey Theatre, Highways Performance Space, and Stomping Ground L.A. In 2023, Ms. Lewis performed her own solo installation called “Movement Transference,” as a part of Institute of Contemporary Arts Los Angeles “Infinite Rehearsal.” In May 2024, Marcella was a featured artist in SHOUTOUTLA magazine as a part of “Local Stories.” Marcella is currently a performing artist with TRIBE multidisciplinary visual performances led by Shamel Pitts and is a freelance artist, choreographer and teacher in Los Angeles and New York.
