And his journey continues when Tribe performs “Black Hole—Trilogy and Triathlon,” in Los Angeles at UCLA’s Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater on February 15. The work, which was described by the New York Times’ Brian Seibert as, “curiously stylish and sincere, glossily cold and tender. Always visually stunning, it’s never dull,” is the final part of Pitts’ Black Series triptych. Enriched by Afrofuturism, the hour-long piece weaves together dance, sound, video and light into a narrative celebrating vitality, tenderness and the power of unity and progress. 

A kind of terpsichorean shaman, Pitts, who was born in 1985 in Brooklyn, is also a conceptual artist and teacher. Beginning his dance training at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and the Performing Arts, and, simultaneously at The Ailey School, he then received his BFA in Dance from the Juilliard School, where he was awarded the Martha Hill Award for excellence in dance. 

The multi-hyphenate then went on to become a member of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance and Ballet Jazz Dance Montréal before joining Batsheva Dance Company, where he performed for seven years under artistic director Ohad Naharin.

Since leaving Batsheva in 2016, Pitts, who also teaches Gaga and has performed around the world with his “Black series,” snagged the 2018 Princess Grace Award, as well as being named a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. And, in 2021, he was one of the choreographers in Saul Williams’ and Bill T. Jones’ work, “The Motherboard Suite,” which garnered him a Bessie Award.

Fjord caught up with Pitts by phone from his home in Brooklyn, with the wide-ranging conversation including topics such as forming Tribe, his artistic inspirations and where he sees himself in the next five to 10 years.

First of all, did you always want to be a dancer/choreographer?

My mother threw a lot of parties, and growing up in Brooklyn, I was always around adults dancing at night. I was one of the only kids dancing with these adults into the early hours of the morning. At some point while dancing, I would arrange them into different sequences and structures; this was my first play at choreographing. I was under 10 years old and dance and choreography have always been a part of who I am.

You formed Tribe in December, 2019, and 2020 was your first year of operations. Obviously, Covid changed everything. What kept you going?

Yes, it was legally formed December 11th, 2019—on my mother’s birthday; she passed away in 2001. Is it a miracle or a coincidence or whatever? Our first year of operations as a non-profit was in 2020, and the world was paused; we were all quarantined. But before 2020, I’d been reaching out to many presenters, organizers and funders to share with them that I was trying to legally form this arts collective. 

At the time, because of schedules, no one was responding to me, but during Covid, when we paused, [they] started to respond. We had space and time that wasn’t leading to a performance, but that kept me going, [because] I was able to be in conversation with funders and create a safety net or shelter for this new organization.

I was also fortunate enough to get Sophie [Myrtil-McCourty of] Lotus Arts Management, our tour-booking agent that helped me to keep going, and the artists that I was working with at that time. There were many artists in many different practices and we were working on a multi-disciplinary art film—“Lake of Red”—with artists who lived all over the world. 

I asked them, “How are you doing?” and I really meant it; their wellness was of huge importance to me. Did they want to continue working on this film, because it was important for them to continue to create and share art. That made me realize that during quarantine, these artists and their resilience and bravery and brilliance was something I felt I needed to invest in or cultivate forward. That’s what kept me going.