Founder/Executive Director
Winston A. Benons Jr. (He/Him) is an interdisciplinary artist, choreographer, scholar and
educator, specializing in dance forms of the African Diaspora. He has extensive training in
Afro-Cuban, Haitian, Afro-Brazilian, and Bomba dance, complemented by studies in Horton and Dunham modern dance techniques. Winston has curated and led intensive programs in culture and dance techniques in both New York City and Cuba.
Winston holds a Bachelor of Arts in Caribbean Dance and Dance Pedagogy from SUNY Empire
State University and a Certificate in Higher Education from Harvard University. He also holds a Master of Arts in Humanities from the University of Chicago where he explored the intersections between Theater and Performance Studies, Curation and Visual Aesthetics.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
His visual arts practice employs technology through screen dance installations and digital
collage work, exploring the embodied archive and themes of identity, memory, and
transformation. As an educator, Winston served as a lecturer at Pace University and an adjunct faculty member at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Additionally, he is a veteran K-12
dance and cultural educator. He is currently the US/MS IB Dance educator at Brooklyn Friends
School. His teaching experience includes guest faculty positions at Ballet Hispánico, Peridance,
Djoniba Dance & Drum, and Cumbe.
Winston's recent choreography and direction credits include Amahl and the Night Visitors and
What Lies Beneath with On Site Opera, where he also served as the cultural advocate. Most
recently, he developed and performed part 1 of a series entitled *Conversations with Rothko* at
the SMART Museum in Chicago. This series integrates breath, vocalization, and dance as
embodied languages used as the mode of communication between Rothko's color field
paintings, the performer, and the audience.
​
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.