Nina Osoria Ahmadi
Darryl Brown
Alexa Caravia
Iman Clark
Nicole Combeau
Anito Gavino
Nadege Green
Arsimmer McCoy
Mr. Mostacho
Victoria Mora

Diego Melgar

During his 2025 Creative Connections fellowship, musician and composer Diego Melgar focused on bringing movement more fully into his creative practice. With financial support, guidance, and resources from Pioneer Winter Collective, he developed new ways of working across music and dance, created a free interdisciplinary workshop series, and incorporated choreography into his performances with Swamp Lily.

His Move workshops invited artists from different disciplines to improvise together and consider ideas like rhythm, contrast, repetition, and shared composition. One unexpected theme stayed with him:

“One of the most surprising bits of feedback from this workshop series was how often the topic of permission came up.”

“By opening up this communal research lab, people felt they had permission to explore art-making in new ways.”

That research also shaped a 90-minute career retrospective at the Miami Beach Bandshell.

“This resulted in a show where the music and choreography were in conversation and intentional at every moment.”

Creative Connections also gave Melgar something increasingly difficult for freelance artists to find: time.

“As a freelance artist, the obstacle I have encountered most often is having to spread myself thin by taking various gigs. The financial support allowed me to make time to focus on these various projects.”

The work continued beyond the fellowship. Move led to new teaching opportunities at the Frost Art Museum at FIU and the Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center. His Bandshell performance was documented by the Rhythm Foundation, and his experiments with choreography led him into filmmaking and music-video production.

“The extra time and resources to research, develop and execute each project has had a significant impact on the trajectory of my career.”

Reflecting on the year, Melgar described Creative Connections as a turning point:

“The generous support and guidance provided by the Pioneer Winter Collective truly made this a catalytic year for my artistic path.”

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Chachi Perez

During her 2025 Creative Connections fellowship, Chachi developed De La Receta, a film project rooted in family, memory, cultural lineage, and the relationships between generations of women.

The fellowship allowed her to return home and spend sustained time with her grandmother, mother, and other women in her family through filmmaking, interviews, archiving, sound, and embodied research. Rather than approaching the project from a distance, she built it from the rhythms, stories, and traditions already present in their lives.

“The funding from PWC provided the rare gift of time, time to step away from the demands of work and fully inhabit the roles of listener, learner, and maker.”

That time made space for deeper conversations, community workshops, and intergenerational exchange. It also shifted the way Chachi thought about value and artistic success.

“Through this film, I wanted to shift that lens, to recognize that my kingdom has always been my home, and my richest treasures are the stories, wisdom, and lived experiences of my family.”

De La Receta became a way to document those relationships while honoring the spaces where her family members feel most at ease.

“The film becomes a celebration of the quiet, enduring power of home, family, and the intergenerational stories that shape who we are.”

The fellowship also gave Chachi permission to make work that was more personally driven. After years of focusing much of her creative energy on her company and collaborative projects, she returned to questions that belonged specifically to her own artistic practice.

“This project brought me back into the duality of artistic creation, reminding me that I can make work that is deeply personal, with and for myself, while also holding space for a broader audience and community.”

Ultimately, De La Receta became both a film and a living family archive, capturing the evolving relationships between Chachi, her mother, and her grandmother while creating a foundation for future work.

“Creative Connections allowed me to create a tangible, living archive that captures the intricate, evolving relationships between my grandmother, my mother, and myself.”

The short film De La Receta is available to watch here.

Andréa Labbée

Andréa developed and presented an excerpt of Miss Enfranchised, a new autobiographical solo piece told through words, movement, and song.

Andréa reflects:

"This was the first time in my adult life creating and re-creating SOBER. Learning to give myself grace for any physical limitations, and to embrace my story with imperfect vulnerability. Quashing the raging perfectionism was hard. The project gave me a frighteningly beautiful opportunity to go deep, real, and make myself a channel of a message, rather than obsessing about being a polished "performer". That was uncomfortable, yet it was the very thing that seemed to resonate most profoundly with witnesses."

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Hector Machado

Hector ran a research incubator for their Accessible Majorette Dance project, designed to develop a language and practice for bringing the majorette dance form to individuals with disabilities.

Hector shares:

"Creative Connections helped me realize that I really want to make Accessible Majorette Dance into a program that can be used in many different spaces by many different types of people: as art therapy, performance, workshops, or even an exercise program (for the upper body of course). Through this project, I have learned about my work ethic, creativity, teaching style, ability, and worth. I’m grateful that programs like this exist that take a chance on a new idea from a novice."

Clarence Brooks

Clarence used his Creative Connections support to relocate to New York City, where he has danced with Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, DanceTactics, David Parker and The Bang Group, while continuing to work with Pioneer Winter Collective.

“PWC works with quite a vast array of artists mentoring, casting, supporting, and so much more. No two artists that work under this collective's umbrella are alike.”

Frank Campisano

Frank expanded the dance classes he began through Creative Connections 2022 into a progressive ballet class in Fort Lauderdale, open to dancers regardless of experience or mobility level. After returning to teaching following major knee surgery, the class led to an ongoing teaching position at the studio.

“I advised my students regularly that there were no judgments, that their bodies were beautiful and capable no matter what.”

Gabriela Cruz

Damas and Discussions

In November 2023, Gaby hosted Damas and Discussions. with queer and trans femmes The experience was her first time moderating a panel and helped her recognize an interest in hosting and producing, with the goal of eventually developing her own podcast.

“I learned that I have a real talent in hosting and producing. I wanna take my talent, expand and start my own podcast.”

Aeon De La Cruz

Query

Aeon offered additional cycles of Query, a dance workshop developed through their ongoing movement research. The workshops gave Aeon space to refine their teaching approach, experiment with new structures, and see how participants responded to ideas around movement, creativity, and process.

“I am less precious about my choreography and more open to what comes out of the moment of being in the same room with collaborators and sharing movement.”

Junior Domingos

Modern Dance + Capoeira

Junior taught 12 sessions of a free Modern Dance + Capoeira class in September and October 2023. It was his first time teaching since relocating to Miami from Brazil and gave him space to develop his dance pedagogy and experiment with choreography combining modern dance, capoeira, and samba.

“PWC gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my roots, and to reconnect with and develop my teaching and choreography practice.”

Josue Garcia

Josue collaborated with PWC resident sound designer and composer Diego Melgar to write an original song, which he integrated into a dance film he had previously created with PWC. The project gave him a chance to write music from a more personal place and introduced a new way of structuring his creative process.

“Anytime I’ve made music before, it’s been to appease an audience. This time I wanted to make music for me, and I did.”

Frank Campisano

Creative Movement

Frank created a series of 13 free dance classes offered in spring and summer 2022 for dancers of all experience levels. The classes combined mobility exercises, ballet fundamentals, turns, and choreography inspired by Pioneer Winter Collective’s Birds of Paradise. It was Frank’s first time teaching a formal dance class.

“It gave me great joy to share my experience as a dancer and a performer and now, A TEACHER!”

Aeon De La Cruz

Query

Aeon developed Query, an open dance workshop offered twice weekly throughout August 2022 at Miami Light Project. Participants explored form, pathways, and interstitial spaces through movement prompts, improvisation, discussion, and their own movement practices.

“I was reminded how important it is to have a shared communal practice, one that both rigorously challenges us and allows enough openness for movement research and improvisation.”

Niurca Márquez

Queer Motherwork: Tending to the Past, Present, and our Futurity

Niurca organized a livestreamed panel with Amber Ortega, Letty Bassart, and jo reyes-boitel exploring queer motherwork, care, kinship, and the labor of tending to others. The conversation considered forms of motherwork beyond gender or biological attachment and opened questions about how artists and communities understand caregiving, family, and responsibility.

“My motherwork has taken on many faces and shapes, and though I’ve never doubted that I am in fact a mother, society continuously has made it a point to tell me otherwise.”

Barbara Meulener

GOZA

Barbara created GOZA, a short dance film exploring Black, brown, queer, and trans joy through movement and rhythm. The film was made with collaborators Aeon De La Cruz, Iman Clark, Hector Machado, Junior Domingos, and Sheda Vours and gave Barbara space to take a new creative risk in her filmmaking and dance practice.

“GOZA was a way for me to figure out the best ways to practice joy.”

The short film GOZA is available to screen here.