Canceled: Community Class With Shamel Pitts

Canceled

Thank you for your interest in this class. Due to a weather delay for the artist, this class has been canceled. Please email mvorhis@umn.edu with questions.

Free for all participants, including University of Minnesota students, faculty and staff. This class has a capacity of 40 students, and registration is required.

Class will begin with an In~Practice Movement Workshop guided by Shamel Pitts, grounded in developing physical efficiency, proficiency, expressive range and clarity through creative prompts. Participants will physically examine and experience embodied movement sources, dynamics, aliveness within stillness, speed, rhythm and groove while incorporating visualization to discover our unique expression through dancing in a communal space. Throughout class, participants will learn about Pitts’ creation process, specifically focusing on ideas and content that birthed Marks of RED, TRIBE’s newest creation premiering March 20-21 at the Walker Art Center. Please bring comfortable clothing, socks, paper and a pen/pencil.

This workshop is open to all levels ages 16+ and available to participants thanks to a partnership between Northrop, the Walker and the UMN Department of Theatre Arts & Dance. Note: Class is not open to observers. Participants will receive a 50% off discount code to attend Marks of RED.

About Shamel Pitts: 

Shamel Pitts (Brooklyn, New York), a 2024 MacArthur Fellow and 2024 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, is a performance artist, choreographer, conceptual artist, dancer, spoken word artist, director and teacher. Born in Brooklyn, New York, 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 and 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 and 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.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.