Experiencing Interruptions?

GIMP GAIT

GIMP GAIT is a solo for two - surrogates to one another. It includes exploration of the subjects' private and public lives - how the perspective of the viewer may attempt to control or shape or have some sort of power over who they are. 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, and he is performing Marjorie's power.

  • Pioneer Winter
    Director
  • Tabatha Mudra
    Director
  • Pioneer Winter
    Producer
  • Pioneer Winter
    Key Cast
  • Marjorie Burnett
    Key Cast
  • Jacqueline Romano
    Director of Photography / Editing
  • soundFORMovement
    Music / Soundscore
  • Abi-L-ity
    Music / Soundscore
  • Pioneer Winter
    Choreography
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short, Other
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 6 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 30, 2016
  • Production Budget:
    400 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    HDV
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85 USA
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Pioneer Winter, Tabatha Mudra

Pioneer Winter is a Miami-based choreographer and director of the risk-taking and experimental Pioneer Winter Collective - invested in physical theatre, contemporary dance, and transmedia. He is deeply passionate about the performance of unexpected bodies in unexpected places, and its potential to manifest in unexpected leadership and social change.

Winter created L.E.A.P. (Leaders of Equality through Arts and Performance), a creative communication program for LGBTQIA+ teens and their allies that focuses on using the arts for activism; and the Grass Stains fellowship, a site-specific performance initiative that mentors and commissions artists interested in site-based and public art work through a close collaboration with acclaimed site choreographer Stephan Koplowitz.

Pioneer Winter completed a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography from Jacksonville University/White Oak, as the first artist to be named a Dennis R. Washington Achievement Scholar. He also holds a Master of Epidemiology degree from FIU. He was a Dance Miami Choreographic Program recipient (2014-2015) and Miami Goes Elsewhere Fellowship recipient (2016), and is a fellow and faculty member in the FIU Honors College Department. Pioneer Winter was recently appointed director of Tigertail Production’s ScreenDance Miami Festival 2017, and is guest artist at both Miami-Dade College and Broward College.

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Director Statement

As a young queer dance artist, I use social and cultural narratives – my Miami-made history – to anchor my work, demonstrating properties of contemporary dance and theater, along with transmedia, text, and current events. I am strongly influenced and uniquely shaped by growing up in Miami, developing work that is site-specific, concert/theater-based, and dance on film. My process includes development of a pattern that draws from improvisation and then becomes standardized across an ensemble as they re-work it to suit their own bodies. I also observe dancers fully and create work that I know will translate to them more efficiently—not by condensing movement, but by becoming more aware of an artists’ individuality and reconciling the physical differences in all of us.

Experimentation remains an integral method in my work and I utilize it to maintain levels of spontaneity and reality. Unlike inanimate mediums, utilization of movement and bodies is both a complication and significant investment. This tenuous boundary between states of staging and revision is unique to choreography and it is something with which I am fascinated. While I develop work with professionally trained dancers, I have also worked with non-dancers and non-performers. Through this work, I have developed different methods to generate movement, including task-based exercises, verbatim theater and autoethnography, imagery, and other improvisations. These methods have layered my choreography with eccentricities, and physically challenging work that initiated through close collaboration with each performer – fully excavating and acknowledging their individuality.

Similarly, recent explorations into mixed ability work have refocused me away from common solutions to narrative or movement-based dilemmas. Instead, each body is treated as a site for transaction and transference of ideas. I am inspired by these challenges, and find these opportunities important for investigating the state of dance and championing unexpected bodies in the performance space. I promote social awareness and engage the community at-large by creating dialogue focused on community interactions. Much of this comes out of my own lived experience. My interests in sexuality, fear, freedom — humanity at its basest level — is something that is incredibly visceral. Many of us are identity-hungry and fight daily to maintain our own truth. Hence, my passion resides in crossing barriers–commonalities over stereotypes, and noting the parallels between different people and backgrounds–cultivating geo-social identity through performance.