Funding for Miami-Dade’s arts community is under attack from all fronts | Opinion

“Full out” is a phrase every dancer has heard — shouted in rehearsal rooms, more command than invitation — asking dancers to give more than they think they have.

But it also means something else. “Full out” is what we’ve learned when survival becomes choreography, and when the body is both archive and advocate — moving with precision and purpose because there is no other choice.

In Florida, survival through art is becoming harder to sustain.

Last year’s $32 million gubernatorial veto gutted state arts funding and eliminated support for nearly 700 organizations — including mine, the Pioneer Winter Collective, a dance theater company I’ve grown here in Miami to hold queer brilliance and bodies that refuse to be erased.

The dancers in my company span generations, from their 20s into their 70s. Some live with HIV. Some navigate disability. Some are reclaiming their lives in recovery. We rehearse in spaces where the truth of our bodies can unfold. We perform wherever that truth needs to be witnessed — museums, sidewalks, theaters, parks. Our choreography is shaped by who’s in the room. Movement becomes evidence of life. A record.

After Florida’s funding cuts, a major federal grant was withheld — even after it had been fully executed. That grant was intended to bring performances centering elders and intergenerational mentorship to new audiences across South Florida, along with workshops exploring memory and recovery. It was likely caught in the crosshairs of the broader assault on DEI initiatives, given the work’s explicit focus on queer legacy and LGBTQ+ elder visibility.

Arts are too often the first thing on the chopping block — treated as optional or disposable — while massive public dollars are funneled into stadium deals and tourism sports spectacles like FIFA. It sends a clear message about whose stories matter and what kind of legacy is worth investing in. Our cultural ecosystem can’t thrive when artists and organizations are forced to beg for scraps.

Further, the county mayor’s dismantling of the Department of Cultural Affairs and burying it under libraries and social services strips the arts of autonomy, silences its advocacy power and makes it easier to defund in the name of “streamlining” during budget cuts.

The centerpiece of my company’s recent work, “ Apollo,” was honored with a proclamation from Miami-Dade on the night of its premiere at the Miami Theater Center, naming April 25 “Pioneer Winter Collective Day.” But being celebrated locally while denied state and federal support — and now facing local threats — reveals the hollowness of recognition without resources.

This is about more than one company’s survival. It’s about the right for anyone outside the mainstream to see themselves reflected. It’s about the kind of work that has kept so many of us alive.

Dance has saved my life — more than once. It held me when I lost my mother, and in moments when I couldn’t see a way forward. It moved what had nowhere else to go. It gave me a way to be brave when nothing else felt solid. And when words fail completely, as they often do, dance is still there. Because we are always in our bodies.

I’ve seen what happens when a body begins to move from its own truth. When a dancer — queer, disabled, Black or brown, system-impacted — stops translating their lived experience for someone else’s comfort. I choreograph to let that truth be seen at full volume. To let it be what it is — without justification or compromise.

Beyond “Pride” month, when so many celebrate queer joy and resilience, it’s important to remember that those things require support. If this work moves you, pour into it. Make a donation, attend a performance, sponsor a workshop. Help keep queer bodies visible, moving and held in the light.

“One more time” is another phrase dancers learn early. Dancers always know the phrase is a promise to keep showing up, no matter the conditions: we go again, full out. This movement is how we keep each other alive.

Pioneer Winter heads the Pioneer Winter Collective, a queer dance theater company in Miami.