In-Practice Movement Workshop with Shamel Pitts

Join NCCAkron for a free community class with 2024 Knight Choreography Prize Recipient Shamel Pitts. 

In-Practice Movement Workshop

Monday, June 2, 2025

6:00–7:30pm 

Guzzetta Hall Studio 194 

228 E Buchtel Ave, Akron, OH 44325

ABOUT THE CLASS

In-Practice Movement Workshop, guided by Shamel Pitts, is grounded in developing physical efficiency and proficiency, expressive range, and clarity through creative prompts. Participants will physically examine and experience embodied movement sources; dynamics, speed, rhythm, and groove; and aliveness within stillness, while incorporating visualization to discover unique individual expression through dancing in a communal space.

Ages 16+. No movement experience necessary. Wear clothes that are comfortable to move in.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Shamel Pitts (Brooklyn, NY), 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, 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 Ballets Jazz Montréal. 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 created a triptych of award-winning multidisciplinary performances, with his arts collective TRIBE, known as his “BLACK series,” which toured extensively to 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, and Wesleyan University, and has been an artist in residence at Harvard University. He is a Princess Grace Award recipient in Choreography, NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow, Jacob’s Pillow artist-in-residence, and 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.

Photo credit: Delaney Greenberg, courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater