Princess Grace Award
Choreography Fellowship, 2018
Nominated by: Gibney Dance Company
Additional Grants:
2022 Works in Progress Grant
2020 Guggenheim Fellow Shamel Pitts is a performance artist, choreographer, and teacher. Shamel began his dance training at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and the Performing Arts and, simultaneously, at The Ailey School. Shamel received 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. Shamel danced with Batsheva Dance Company for 7 years, under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin and is a certified teacher of Gaga movement language. He is a 2017 artist in residence at Harvard University, a 2018 Princess Grace Award Winner, a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow, a 2020 Jacob’s Pillow artist in residence and a 2021 Bessie award winner. Shamel is the Founding Artistic Director of TRIBE, a New York based multidisciplinary arts collective. Shamel Pitts | TRIBE is also a New York Live Arts’ Live Feed artist in residence.
