Pioneer Winter – Dance/USA Artist Fellow

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Image Description: Close-up portrait of Pioneer Winter, a queer dancer and choreographer, wearing a maroon shirt and gold necklace with their name. They face the camera with a calm, grounded expression, dark curly hair slightly tousled, and soft light highlighting their skin. The background is a muted green-gray, drawing focus to their eyes and expression. Photo by Chantal Lawrie.

Pioneer Winter

he/they

Miami, Florida | the ancestral lands of the Tequesta, Miccosukee, and Seminole peoples

Pioneer Winter (b. 1987; he/they) is a choreographer, dancer, and artistic director based in Miami. Winter creates intergenerational, queer, and physically integrated dance-theater rooted in community, care, and social change. Their work challenges dominant notions of beauty and belonging, while expanding what dance is and who it’s for.

Winter is the founder of Pioneer Winter Collective (PWC), a platform that supports artists living at the intersection of dance, identity, and public health. Through PWC’s performances, workshops, and artist development programs, he creates space for queer, elder, disabled, and system-impacted artists to be seen as essential culture-bearers. Pioneer’s choreographic work blends movement, text, and film, with 2025 projects including Apollo and In the Belly of the Bird/Godmother, soma-poem shaped by the loss of his mother and her talking African gray parrot.

Winter holds an MFA in Choreography and a MPH in Epidemiology. He was named in Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” and received awards from Creative Capital, NEFA, National Performance Network, MAP Fund, and the Mellon Foundation. Pioneer has directed and curated the ScreenDance Miami Festival since 2017, and mentors artists across the country.

Learn more about Pioneer Winter:

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Image Description: With eyes closed in a sunfilled studio, Pioneer Winter’s head rests on their hand in front of a wall of colorful stained glass, wearing a gray-blue sheer, long-sleeved top and wide pants. Photo by Chantal Lawrie.
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Nearly 20 artists gathered at the end of Grass Stains Week 2024. Artist mentor, Gabri Christa, a Brown Dutch-Caribbean woman wears a wide brimmed hat and lime green dress, is seated next to Pioneer Winter, a white genderqueer person wearing a lime green crop top with an open-mouth smile. They are surrounded by women, femmes, and nonbinary artists. The artists are exhausted but exhilarated and joyful from their week exploring the site together. Photo by Morgan Parker.
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Image Description: Four dancers in a dramatic counter-balance, entwined with reflective silver fabric; two arched back, two supporting. Photo by Chris Cameron.
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Image Description: On a dark stage lit with cool blue tones, Pioneer Winter, standing barefoot in a white leotard. Tattoos are visible on their chest and upper thigh. Draped across their shoulders is Clarence Brooks, whose body curves like a comma, legs tucked, arms wrapped forward, as Clarence reclines in repose. Clarence’s chin connects with Pioneer’s shoulder, whose eyes are closed, face upward. Photo by Passion Ward.

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