News: NY Premiere of Multidisciplinary Performance "BLACK HOLE - Trilogy and Triathlon"

 

New York Live Arts and 92Y present the New York premiere of BLACK HOLE – Trilogy and Triathlon, a multidisciplinary performance choreographed by the award-winning movement artist Shamel Pitts, co-created and performed by his Brooklyn-based arts collective TRIBE. Deeply inspired and infused by the spirit of Afrofuturism, this contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk combines dance, original sound, video projection, and light design in a tale of vitality and tenderness, darkness and light, personal growth and collective empowerment. Black Hole – which constitutes the final installment of Pitts’s Black Trilogy – will be presented in the New York Live Arts Theater (219 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011) on Thursday, April 21st, Friday, April 22nd, and Saturday, April 23rd, 2022 at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased at NewYorkLiveArts.org or 212-691-6500, and are on sale now. 

In BLACK HOLE, 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. Choreographed by 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and 2021 Bessie Award winner Shamel Pitts, who also performs in it, the piece features dancers Marcella Lewis and Tushrik Fredericks; video and lighting designed by Lucca Del Carlo; music composed by Sivan Jacobvitz; spoken word text by Shamel Pitts; and costumes by Naomi Maaravi and Mirelle Martins. Photography and cinematography for the piece are by Itai Zwecker.

BLACK HOLE – Trilogy and Triathlon concludes the Black Trilogy, a series of deeply personal live performance pieces conceived and choreographed by 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 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 her 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. Pitts explains: “By working with performers from different places within the African diaspora, my own understanding of the many facets of Blackness has evolved. Now, united by the feedback loop of ideas and empowered by shared resources, we can create and seize our own space.” 
Photo by Itai Zwecker
The New York Live Arts “Our Season of Anniversaries” – celebrating 10 Years of Live Arts and 40 Years of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company – emboldens commitment to artists at every stage of their career: artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the social, political and cultural currents of our times. Shamel Pitts I TRIBE is a 2021-23 Live Feed creative residency program artist, a laboratory for the development of new commissioned work directed toward the Live Arts theater. A new work from Pitts I TRIBE will have its world premiere in the 2022-23 Live Arts season.

BLACK HOLE was developed with the kind support of Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU), American Dance Abroad, gloATL, PearlArts Studios, CrossAward (Italy), Dock 11 / Eden (Germany), and Derida Dance Center (Bulgaria), Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, New York Live Arts, and 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center.
 
Effective February 27, 2022, all ticket holders will be required to provide proof of full vaccination and a booster dose for those eligible upon arrival. All visitors ages 5+ are required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and booster dose (when eligible in accordance with CDC guidelines). All visitors and staff ages 18+ must also show a valid ID with proof of vaccination. Children under the age of 5 will not be permitted to any indoor program or event. Live Arts also requires all visitors to wear masks while on the premises during a ticketed public event.

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