In partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Northwestern University’s Black Arts Consortium presents a conversation between performing artist Shamel Pitts and Professor Jafari S. Allen of Columbia University. Frictions presents performances by three artists—Will Rawls, Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, and Barak adé Soleil—who explore blackness through bodily movement. Through in-person performances as well as performance-driven video installations, their works engage themes including queer intimacy, disabled bodies in motion and at rest, and the relationship between animation, race, and history. Defying conventional notions of blackness, queerness, movement, dance, and performance, Frictions invites both audiences and performers to engage with the productive tensions that emerge through each work. This talk is in dialogue with MCA’s On Stage: Frictions, a suite of performances by three dancers (Pitts, Will Rawls, and Barak adé Soleil) whose work explores blackness through bodily movement.