Touch of RED, a new dance work created by visionary choreographer Shamel Pitts and his TRIBE collective, will make its world premiere at Mass MoCA on October 21 and 22 in a production that’s being copresented with Jacob’s Pillow.
“Touch of RED was inspired by Pitts’s fascination with the quickness of footwork in boxing and camaraderie within combat,” writes The Observer’s Wada Udobong. The piece recasts the boxing ring from “a space of duels to one of duets,” challenging the dominant perceptions of male vulnerability while utilizing lighting, projection, and animation to turn a space of aggression into a space of softness.
Part of Pitts’s “RED Series,” Touch of RED “continues his research to propose and share the colorfulness within Blackness, creating a body of work that supports, shelters, and cultivates an Afro-futuristic performance art landscape in which the multitude of Black diversity and capacity is realized, allowed, nurtured, and shared.”
The world premiere of Touch of RED will take place at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, on October 21 and 22 at 8pm. Tickets are $35-$75 (students are $20). Following the October 22 performance will be an artist talk with Shamel Pitts and Jacob’s Pillow administrator Melanie George.
This article appears in October 2022.
