CHOREOGRAPHIC INDEX
Theatre Works
Title: DJ APOLLO, early research in-progress
Anticipated Premiere: October 2023
Synopsis: DJ Apollo unpacks the life of a deity, who is often portrayed as young, virile, and omnipotent through the resoundingly human lens of aging. The project draws from Greek myth, an American ballet, oral histories, and archives to shape a rich queer narrative. The collaboration is intergenerational and centers the bodies - and lived experience - of queer-identifying performers ages 55+. In the Ballet Blanc, composed by Stravinsky and choreographed by Balanchine, the story centers the youthful potential of Apollo - a young stud of a god visited by three Muses to help realize his full power. I am interested in how we can queer that mythic arc by questioning notions of resilience and aging, and explore the desire to transform significant loss into something radically fierce. Set in 1987 at the height of the AIDS crisis, DJ Apollo situates a now-faded, graying Apollo as an exiled disc jockey, spinning at the only club that will still have him - a leather bar in Hades. A far cry from entertaining circuit queens and being worshiped from atop Mount Olympus, Apollo reckons with his vulnerability and fears of irrelevance; he ultimately reinvents himself, cast in studded black leather. DJ Apollo will be generated through the memories and oral histories of queer elders in the South Florida community - DJ legends, muscle daddies, and drag queens, who've been worshipped as muses and gods. The audience is welcomed into a low-ceiling leather bar for an immersive, theatrical, multimedia performance. Movement will be devised in collaboration with a quartet of performers, who are queer elders themselves, to a score that reframes Stravinsky in the punk context of queercore.
Title: BIRDS OF PARADISE, commissioned by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
Performance(s): September 16-19, 2021
Location: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
Synopsis: Birds of Paradise honors and celebrates the enduring nature of queer and marginalized people to shape themselves into something that is desirable, vulnerable, fierce and reborn. Through this world premiere, Miami-based choreographer Pioneer Winter continues their exploration of beauty and virtuosity outside the mainstream by creating a series of dance-based, queer solo portraits on the themes of agency, survival and transformation. Birds of Paradise is iridescent and effortful. It is a provocative, immersive piece perched between fight and flight. Featuring film, installation and live dance performance, this new work is developed in collaboration with the performers, the White Elephant Group media company, and sound artist Juraj Kojš.
Birds of Paradise confronts our notions of dance by exploring movement with people of varied physical ability, body type, gender identity, race, ethnicity, and experiences. This radical assemblage of birds living in our paradise will challenge us to explore our own humanity.
Title: BETTER?, commissioned and performed by Jacksonville Dance Theatre
Length: 12 min
Performance(s): October 2019
Location(s): Miami Dade County Auditorium On.Stage Black Box
Synopsis: It’s about life. How we try to avoid unavoidable things. It’s about seeing a problem. How we wait for others to see it too. And once all see it, delay a solution or shift responsibility. It’s about acknowledging nobody else can be held responsible for what we all see. And that even our solution - or avoidance - is a temporary one.
Title: DOV, commissioned by Live Arts Miami
Length: 35 min
Performance(s): February 2019
Location(s): MDC Live Arts Lab
Synopsis: Dov is a physical theater solo directed by Pioneer Winter for thirteen year-old Izzi Lieber-Person, who will be performing for the first time. Dov explores Izzi’s transition from a twelve to thirteen year-old, using dance, monologue, and basketball prowess as soundscore. Through the eyes of a boy who is in the act of becoming, the audience confronts their own childhood and the question of what it means to become.
Title: REPRISE
Length: 55 min
Performance(s): January 2018; March 2018; June 2018; October 2018; April 2019
Location(s): Mandelstam Theater; Miami Dade County Auditorium On.Stage Black Box; Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts; New World School of the Arts; Norton Museum of Art
Synopsis: Reprise, by the Pioneer Winter Collective and co-presented with the Miami Dade County Auditorium, uses contemporary dance and physical theater to explore marginalization, allyship, and queerness - how we intersect.
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/reprise
Title: ALONE VIGNETTES, commissioned by the Harvey Milk Festival
Length: 60 min
Performance(s): May 2017
Location(s): Florida Studio Theatre; Pineapple Studio, Sarasota, FL
Synopsis: An evening of dance theater solo vignettes that explore love and loss, faith and family through intimate and interactive dialogue that blends humor, isolation, and anecdote.
Title: FORCED ENTRY AND OTHER LOVE STORIES
Length: 55 min
Performance(s): February 2017
Location(s): The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse
Synopsis: The work focuses on intimate acts of love - raw, honest, marginalizing, and sometimes difficult to recount. It is a dance - a physical work that wants to understand why we love, how we love, what that love feels like, and how we recall it when that love is gone.
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/forced-entry-and-other-love-stories
Title: GIMP GAIT, commissioned by Karen Peterson and Dancers
Length of Live Work: 15 min
Length of Film Adaptation: 5 min
Performance(s): May 2016; September 2016; November 2016; February 2017; January 2019
Performance Location(s): Miami-Dade County Auditorium; MDC Live Arts Lab; The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse
Film Festival Participation: Cucalorus Film Festival; ScreenDance Miami; LA Dance Film Festival (Jury Award); Corvallis Queer Film Festival; Chicago Feminist Film Festival; Miami Film Festival; Festival Internacional de Cortometrajes y Arte Sobre Enfermedades; Tiny Dance Film Festival; Jacksonville Dance Film Festival (Jury Award for Best Short Film), San Francisco Transgender Film Festival, San Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (Boulder, CO), Leeds International Film Festival (UK), In/Motion International Chicago Dance on Film Festival, Seattle Transmedia International Film Festival, 305 & Havana Improv Festival
Synopsis: The title of this work discloses its origin: 'gimp', a slur meant to mark a weak or handicapped person and 'gait', the manner or style of a person's walk. The subjects do not hide these from you - do you have a good view? Can you notice every part of their bodies - both the similarities and differences? This is Marjorie, and she wants you to witness her. This is Pioneer, a surrogate, and he is performing Marjorie's power.
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/gimp-gait
Title: HOST
Length: 50 min
Performance(s): November 2015; March 2016
Location(s): RIFT Blackbox Theater; Miami Dade County Auditorium On.Stage Black Box
Synopsis: An all-male physical theatre work that explores power, authority, control, isolation, and desire. Within these paths, the word ‘host’ emerges as both sexualized territory as well as a bodily struggle. ‘Host’ is layered in the queer community, where one word is weighted by both history and its digital presence – host of a dinner party, host of a game show, host to an orgy, host to a virus.
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/host/
Title: SIRENS IN SPACE
Length: 58 min
Performance(s): April 2015
Location(s): Miami Dade County Auditorium On.Stage Black Box
Synopsis: A transmedia dance theater work – Think crazy space pirate ‘Mean Girls’ and an operatic cyborg-like ship mixed with film projection, contemporary dance, and extreme beauty regimens. Explore the unknown with five sirens, as they cruise through time and space searching for an elusive treasure in this literal celestial ‘manhunt’.
Title: RHINO BOY
Length: 20 min
Performance(s): July 2014; November 2014
Location(s): Jacksonville University, Baseball Field; RIFT Blackbox Theater
Synopsis: In this allegory-turned-autobiographical dance performance, a young rhinoceros seeks to become human by removing his horn in order to walk among man. Will self-removal of his horn free him of the human spectators’ gaze, and how close is his identity to this physical attribute? What does it mean to truly ‘walk among man’?
Title: PIE SOLO, commissioned by Miami Theater Center
Length: 60 min
Performance(s): March 2013; September 2015
Location(s): Miami Theater Center; RIFT Blackbox Theater
Synopsis: A reinterpretation of the ‘one-man show’, Pioneer Winter examines faith in religion and culture from the vantage points of sexuality, age, and queerness. Video installation, tap dancing, and stripping draw the audience into an intimate and interactive dialogue blending humor, isolation, and anecdote.
Title: A PROPER MARRIAGE, commissioned by New Works Miami
Length: variable, full cast 26 min; duet excerpt 6-7 min
Performance(s): February 2013; April 2013; September 2013; November 2013; February 2015; June 2015
Location(s): New Works Miami at Miami Art Museum (now Pérez Art Museum Miami); Daniel Lewis Miami Dance Sampler at Little Haiti Cultural Center; Collaborations in Dance Festival at Triskelion Arts in Brooklyn, NY; Thalian Hall at Cucalorus Film Festival; FilmGate Interactive Conference at The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse; Dance Hack during Dance/USA at RIFT Blackbox Theater
Synopsis: A speculative piece that comments on the perceived co-dependence of music and movement, especially live music with dance–underlying properties of a dancer’s dependence on composition, and the musician’s own foresight to create action from sound. Sheet music is attached to the backs of dancers, and the musicians follow the dancer in order to read the music and maintain the melody. Irony rests in the notion that if the dancer moves too quickly and the musician cannot keep up, the music will falter and the dancer’s own rhythm will stop.
Title: MOTHER-SON(DAYS)
Length: 15 min
Performance(s): December 2011; April 2012; June 2012; May 2014; April 2016; October 2016
Location(s): Miami Open Stage at Little Haiti Cultural Center; The Field at Miami Theater Center; Little Haiti Cultural Center; Florida Dance Festival at University of South Florida; North Miami Arts Collective; Create.Dance.Florida at Duncan Theatre; New World School of the Arts
Synopsis: Looks at the parallel lives of a mother and her son through actual diary entries composed at very different times. The mother’s diary entries are taken from when she was a teenager of seventeen years-old; the ten year-old son’s entries are taken shortly after the time of his mother’s death. Both mom and son, separated by time and terminal illness, reflect similar personalities, fears, and even some humor.
Title: 42: A STONEWALL PROSPECTIVE
Length: 45 min
Performance(s): June 2011
Location(s): Bass Museum of Art; Ancient Spanish Monastery, North Miami Beach
Synopsis: A live multi-disciplinary dance performance that combines film and large-scale props to recall the events leading to the uprising and violent protests which ignited the modern-day gay civil rights movement.
Title: PHALLUSSY, commissioned by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
Length: 30 min
Performance(s): March 2011
Location(s): Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
Synopsis: A series of gender-bending vignettes, revealing a mocking storyline about sexuality and sexual identity.
Title: REACHING THE SURFACE
Length: 40 min
Performance(s): June 2010
Location(s): Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami Plaza; Little Haiti Cultural Center
Synopsis: Investigates the way our community views HIV/AIDS today, the stigma that is created when one fears the unknown. The audience is confronted with dancers both HIV+ and advocates. Topics such as status disclosure, infection from infidelity, medical expenses and treatment cost, and hope for change are explored.
Site-Specific and Performance Art Works
Title: HEPHAESTUS, commissioned by Tigertail Productions
Performance(s): April 2017
Location(s): Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
Synopsis: Part of an evening of short solos commissioned by Tigertail Productions for its Month of Fire, the performer embodies the duality of the Greek fire god Hephaestus: born from power, rejected by that power, and then regaining that power. Hephaestus' being flung from Olympus into the ocean, and then reborn from that water and coming to power, reaching omnipotence, through fire.
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/hephaestus
Title: A LOVE TO LAST 13 HOURS, commissioned by Elsewhere Museum
Length: 13 hrs
Performance(s): July 2016
Location(s): Elsewhere Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Synopsis: Physicalizes the tensions of romance and relationships by performing the act of maintaining a heavy, precariously balanced structure from collapsing for 13 hours. Scenographic elements include shards of found glass and mirror from Elsewhere, display cabinets that are suspended in a perpetual state of near collapse, and a 13 hour 9 minute playlist of break-up stories gathered while in residency. This durational work challenges the endurance of the performer Pioneer Winter by placing the body in a constant state of remaking and negotiating, as fatigue sets in over the span of 13 hours. Themes that surfaced in the gathering of the break-up stories include intimacy, power, responsibility, fatigue, will, surrender, and heartbreak – the performance itself is treated as a purge of these themes.
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/a-love-to-last-13-hours
Title: TIMED SALIVA, commissioned by Edge Zones Art Projects
Length: Variable
Performance(s): June 2013
Location(s): Edge Zones Art Projects in Miami Design District
Synopsis: A somewhat violent performance that investigates temporality, the gay adult entertainment industry as the machine, safe exit, and gay-for-pay/straight commodity.
Title: EBB/FLOW
Length: 15 min
Performance(s): February 2012; April 2015
Location(s): boat basin, Deering Estate at Cutler
Synopsis: A site-specific pas de deux aboard a canoe, exploring relationship structure: mutual affection becoming a function of stasis. The water is a metaphor of the ebb and flow of romance.
Title: GLORY TAP
Length: 6 min
Performance(s): June 2011; November 2012; March 2013; September 2015; October 2015
Location(s): Bass Museum of Art; San Francisco Transgender Film Festival at CounterPULSE; Miami Theater Center; RIFT Blackbox Theater; VERSUS Queer Pop-Up
Synopsis: A humorous tap dance duet that takes place within a stylized bathroom stall. The dance explores anonymity, oppression, stigma, fear, and liberation by a series of choreographed tap dances that imply an anonymous sexual encounter (glory hole).
University Guest Artist Works
Title: UNTITLED, commissioned by Florida State College Jacksonville (2021)
Length: 10 min
Title: MY NECK, MY BACH, commissioned by Broward College (2016)
Length: 10 min
Title: A CHOREOGRAPHIC TAKING, commissioned by Miami Dade College (2016)
Length: 10 min
Title: THE LOW PLACE, commissioned by Broward College (2015)
Length: 10 min
Title: INSPEKTOR, commissioned by Nova Southeastern University (2013)
Length: 10 min
Performance(s): November 2013; March 2014
Additional performances: American College Dance Festival at Georgia College, Milledgeville, Georgia.
Title: PANT SUIT, commissioned by Miami Dade College (2012)
Length: 10 min
Additional performances: South Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center; American College Dance Festival at University of South Florida
Curatorial Practice
Program: GRASS STAINS, produced by Pioneer Winter
Date: March 21-26, 2022
Location: Curtiss Mansion
Participating Artists: TBA
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/grass-stains
Program: SCREENDANCE MIAMI FESTIVAL, produced by Miami Light Project
Date: January 2022
Locations: The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, Wallcast at New World Symphony, Perez Art Museum Miami, O Cinema
Link to project page with past festival trailers and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/screendance-miami
Program: SCREENDANCE MIAMI FESTIVAL, produced by Miami Light Project
Date: January 2021
Locations: Wallcast at New World Symphony, North Beach Bandshell, Virtual
Link to project page with past festival trailers and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/screendance-miami
Program: GRASS STAINS, produced by Pioneer Winter
Date: February 2020
Participating Artists: Ana Sánchez-Colberg, Pioneer Winter, Christopher Scott Caldwell, Rosee Camafreita, Hector Machado, Belaxis Buil, Susan Caraballo, Niurca Marquez, Monica Lopez De Victoria, Jenna Balfe, Liz N' Bow (Liz Ferrer & Bow Ty Enterprises Venture Capital), Lize-Lotte Pitlo, Amber Ortega, Carla Forte, Justice Rodriguez, Maya Nadine Billig, Clinton Harris, Lisa Nalven, Aeon De La Cruz, Reshma Anwar, Lily Ockwell
Locations: Miami Theater Center and MDC Live Arts Lab in Building 1 of MDC Wolfson Campus
Premise: The 2020 Grass Stains program uncovered the practice and pathways of generating collaborative, site-driven work with over 20 South Florida-based artists. This gathering of creators worked with internationally recognized choreographer and researcher, Ana Sánchez-Colberg, in a laboratory setting over the course of one week. In alignment with the ECOCultura initiative celebrating Performances for the Planet, Pioneer Winter Collective partnered with MDC Live Arts to explore the process of creating site-specific work through the Collective's site-specific initiative Grass Stains.
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/grass-stains
Program: SCREENDANCE MIAMI FESTIVAL, produced by Miami Light Project
Date: January 2020
Locations: The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, Wallcast at New World Symphony, Perez Art Museum Miami, O Cinema
Link to project page with past festival trailers and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/screendance-miami
Program: SCREENDANCE MIAMI FESTIVAL, produced by Miami Light Project
Date: January 2019
Locations: The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, Wallcast at New World Symphony, Perez Art Museum Miami
Link to project page with past festival trailers and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/screendance-miami
Program: GRASS STAINS, produced by Pioneer Winter
Date: December 2018
Participating Choreographers: Liony Garcia and Sandra Portal-Andreu
Locations: Hialeah Park Studios (formerly Hialeah Racetrack) and Chicago Produce
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/grass-stains
Program: SCREENDANCE MIAMI FESTIVAL, produced by Miami Light Project
Date: January 2018
Locations: The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, Perez Art Museum Miami, Soho Beach House
Link to project page with past festival trailers and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/screendance-miami
Program: DANCE SYMPOSIUM #4
Date: November 2017
Title: Disability, Leadership, and Dance
Guests: Choreographer Karen Peterson with Disability and Advocacy Professor Diana Valle-Riestra
Location: Florida International University
Premise: The Dance Symposium series is an ongoing co-presentation between Pioneer Winter and the Florida International University Honors College Department, where local choreographers are paired with Honors faculty members to discuss the reciprocity of their respective practices.
Program: SCREENDANCE MIAMI FESTIVAL, produced by Tigertail Productions
Date: January 2017
Locations: MDC Live Arts Lab, Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami Beach Cinematheque
Link to project page with past festival trailers and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/screendance-miami
Program: GRASS STAINS, produced by Pioneer Winter
Date: September, October, December 2016
Participating Choreographers: Ana Mendez, Jenny Larsson, Niurca Marquez, Marissa Alma Nick
Locations: The Kampong in Coconut Grove, Nature Preserve at Florida International University, Calle 8 of Little Havana, Beach of Surfside Village
Link to project page with images, video, and press/reviews: http://pioneerwinter.com/grass-stains
Program: DANCE SYMPOSIUM #3
Date: September 2016
Title: Body as a Site for Land Politics
Guests: Choreographer Jenny Larsson with the FIU Office of Sustainability
Location: Florida International University
Premise: The Dance Symposium series is an ongoing co-presentation between Pioneer Winter and the Florida International University Honors College Department, where local choreographers are paired with Honors faculty members to discuss the reciprocity of their respective practices.
Program: DANCE SYMPOSIUM #2
Date: February 2016
Title: Passion, Passion, Passion - The Development of Flamenco as an Art Form and Its Use as Economic and Political Currency
Guests: Choreographer Niurca Marquez and the FIU Department of Latin American Studies
Location: Florida International University
Premise: The Dance Symposium series is an ongoing co-presentation between Pioneer Winter and the Florida International University Honors College Department, where local choreographers are paired with Honors faculty members to discuss the reciprocity of their respective practices.
Program: DANCE SYMPOSIUM #1
Semester: November 2015
Title: Dancing My Mother’s Body
Guests: Choreographer Tiffany 'Hanan' Madera and the FIU Department of Latin American Studies
Location: Florida International University
Premise: The Dance Symposium series is an ongoing co-presentation between Pioneer Winter and the Florida International University Honors College Department, where local choreographers are paired with Honors faculty members to discuss the reciprocity of their respective practices.
Program: DANCE HACK, produced by Pioneer Winter and co-presented with FundArte and Tigertail Productions
Year: June 2015
Participating Choreographers: Marissa Alma Nick, Carla Forte and Alexey Taran, Hattie Mae Williams, Pioneer Winter, Liony Garcia, Niurca Marquez, Paola Escobar
Location: RIFT Blackbox
Premise: Dance Hack was a group show of eight artists presenting progressive and experimental choreography. The work ranges from intimate pas de deux between dancer and musician, to screendance and dance-theater. Each work was originally submitted (and rejected) in an open call to a local selection committee for the Dance/USA Annual Conference.
Program: ¿QUÉ PASA [EN DANZA], U.S.A.?, produced by Pioneer Winter
Year: October 2014
Participating Choreographers: Ana Miranda, Samantha Pazos, Jennifer Martin Bermudez, Belaxis Buil
Location: RIFT Blackbox
Premise: An evening of Cuban-American female choreographers based in Miami