Biography
Winston A. Benons Jr. is a researcher, choreographer, educator, and the Artistic Director of The Ground Provision Movement (GP), which is a dance theater company founded in 2003. His work is informed by socio-cultural studies and uses dance vocabulary, theatre and text as communicative tools. Winston has had the opportunity to supplement his dance training with socio-cultural studies of several countries of the Southern Hemisphere. As an active member of ASWAD (the Association of the Studies of the Worldwide African Diaspora) he attended the academic conference Diasporic Encounters and Collaborations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Winston A. Benons Jr. is a researcher, choreographer, educator, and the Artistic Director of The Ground Provision Movement (GP), which is a dance theater company founded in 2003. His work is informed by socio-cultural studies and uses dance vocabulary, theatre and text as communicative tools. Winston has had the opportunity to supplement his dance training with socio-cultural studies of several countries of the Southern Hemisphere. As an active member of ASWAD (the Association of the Studies of the Worldwide African Diaspora) he attended the academic conference Diasporic Encounters and Collaborations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
While in Brazil he was able to build relationships and explore life in Salvador da Bahia. He also attended the conference on Afro Latino Identity at the CUNY Graduate Center and Beyond Visibility: Rethinking the African Diaspora in Latin America at the University of California, Berkeley where he became a member of the Afro-Latino Working group. He presented research and was the panel chair of the Music, Arts and Memory through Integration in Educational Practice panel that was part of the Caribbean Studies Association annual conference in partnership with Universidad de la Habana in 2018. He also was chosen to facilitate his workshop Sonata, Sonnet & Social Justice as part of the Teaching Social Activism Conference at the Museum of the City of New York. Winston has traveled to Venezuela where he performed and took workshops on Venezuelan Folkloric dance. Winston has created work for his company as one way to disseminate the research, dance studies and all that he has encountered to provoke an active dialogue to affect social change and understanding. GP has presented work throughout New York City (NuDance festival at Riverside Theater, Thelma Hill dance series at the Triangle theater (LIU), DTW private showing and the Todo Mezclado Dance festival) to name a few. He was the Co-Director of EVOLVE Diaspora an organization that provides intensive studies in culture and dance techniques of the African Diaspora in NYC and Cuba. As Co-Director Winston helped develop both a community program for families funded by a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council, and a cultural travel tour to Cuba. He is now the Founder and Director of tRúe Culture & Arts an organization that produces cultural exchanges, and develops and facilitates academic workshops/lectures/residencies for both secondary schools and universities.