In Shade Compositions, Rashaad Newsome stages a live performance that orchestrates Black women performing vocalizations, gestures, and facial expressions commonly associated with Black cultural expression. 
The piece highlights how reality television reduces Black characters—particularly women—to exaggerated non-verbal cues and reactions.

By turning these into a choreographed composition, Newsome critiques the way such behaviors are commodified for entertainment. The work reclaims these gestures as complex, intentional, and worthy of focus, challenging the reductive lens of mainstream media.