February 20, 2025 • 7:30 pm
Running time: 1 hour, 1 minute and 1 second (no intermission)
The McPherson Playhouse is located on the traditional lands of the Lekwungen peoples, also known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. We extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live, create, and perform on this territory.
Please, no video or audio recording of any kind. No photographs.
Concept Direction & Choreographer: Shamel Pitts
Performers: Shamel Pitts, Tushrik Fredericks, Marcella Lewis
Video Light & Mapping Designer: Lucca Del Carlo
Musician & Composer: Sivan Jacobovitz
Artistic Production Manager: Rus Snelling
Black Tarp Designer: Naomi Rapaport
Costume Designer: Mirelle Martins
Photographer & Cinematographer: Itai Zwecker
Photographers & Cinematographers: The Adeboyé Brothers
Spoken Word Text: Shamel Pitts
Stage Managers: Chanel Pinnock
Creative Director: Mirelle Martins
Artistic Administrator: E Katrina Lewis
Managing Director: Brittany Wilson
Digital Creative Associate: Pam Panozzo
Press Agent: Kamila Slawinski
Additional Music: Sound Collage / Remixes Track ID:
Door Of the Cosmos / Sun Ra
AirFlow! Velocity / Keru Not Ever
Fever Dream / Daniel Avery
Funeral Canticle / John Tavener
Radiance / Tim Hecker
Heavy Snow / ChiHei Hatakeyama
Feeling Good / Nina Simone
Fever Dream / Daniel Avery
Funeral Canticle / John Tavener
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 – Trilogy And Triathlon concludes the “BLACK Series” triptych, a series of deeply personal live performance pieces conceived and choreographed by Shamel Pitts since 2015. The first work of this collection, a solo BLACK BOX –Little Book of RED, introduced the recurring themes of this cycle: identity, search for the roots and community, and personal evolution of the artist, born “young, gifted and Black.” 2019 saw the New York premiere of BLACK VELVET –Architectures And Archetypes, “a haunting duet” (The New York Times) with Brazilian-born Mirelle Martins. Collaboration with Martins and other “BLACK Series” artists subsequently spurred the inception of TRIBE, a multidisciplinary collective of international creatives, united by Afrofuturistic ideals and shared goals. As an artistic hub and a nonprofit organization, TRIBE became not only a tool for producing works but a creative endeavor in its own right.
TRIBE (TRI314 Multidisciplinary Visual Performances, d.b.a. TRIBE) is a Brooklyn, New York-based multidisciplinary arts collective founded by MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow Shamel Pitts in December 2019. The arts collective, a 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.
TRIBE’s mission is cultivating space to create a platform for artists — most specifically artists of colour — with huge inspiration from the Afrofuturism movement. This movement states that we have a responsibility through our work to tell new stories and create a brighter future that is different, and shines more luminously, from its past.
Understanding that Performance Art and Live Art are practices of human connection, TRIBE acts nationally and internationally by developing art exchanges in collaboration with institutions and artists, with a focus on the African diaspora.
TRIBE art projects include (but are not restricted to): movement-based work, live multidisciplinary performance, video art, video documentary, photography, exhibition, commissioned dance choreography, art residency, and workshops.
Ultimately, TRIBE aims to bring the audience and community into experiences that humanize Black and Brown bodies and share the colourfulness within Blackness that allows us to be multiplicitous.
Read the company’s full biographies by scanning this QR code with your smartphone’s camera.
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Board of Directors
President: Colette Baty
Vice President: Brendan Ralfs
Treasurer: Sarah Millard
Secretary: Marlon Murr
Directors: Kemi Craig, Linley Faulkner, Joost Pelt, Philip Pierce, Carrie Smart, Emily Zeng
Dance Victoria is supported by:
Staff
Executive Director: Gillian Jones
General Manager: Dayna Szyndrowski
Development & Operations Manager: Shireen McNeilage
Marketing Manager: Anne-Sophie Cournoyer
Production Manager: Holly Vivian
Community Engagement Manager: Larissa Sharma
Artist Programs & Studio Manager: Kiera Shaw
Graphic Design: Rayola Creative
Advertising Sales: Bonnie Light Advertising
Dance Victoria Studios 111 – 2750 Quadra St. Victoria, BC V8T 4E8 P: 250-595-1829 F: 250-590-7209
info@dancevictoria.com
Dance Victoria wishes to thank its many donors and volunteers.
Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Fund and Endowment Fund are held at Victoria Foundation. Dance Victoria is a proud member of the CanDance Network and the BC Alliance of Arts & Culture.
Additional support for Dance Victoria’s presentation of Shamel Pitts | TRIBE and related outreach activities is generously provided by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment.