Thick Like Me: Uprooting Racism and Sizeism from the Dance Classroom

Fat does not equal ugly. Fat does not equal weak. Being thin does not make one morally superior to those who are not. Being thin does not make one healthier than those who are not. Leave your judgment at the door. Feel free to bring your love right on in. (Morris 2017, 255)

Opportunities in dance spaces are rarely based solely on how well one dances. Many opportunities inside dance studios, education spaces, and beyond depend on how much dancers weigh, what size they wear, how dark their skin is, whether they will blend with other dancers, a choreographer’s aesthetic preference, and whether they fit a costume. Dancers whose bodies do not meet the traditional thin, White frame of professional dance are constantly degraded, dismissed, or penalized for daring to exist in an environment that detests their presence. Yet, all bodies can be dancing bodies, and dancers, regardless of size, deserve the same opportunities. A dancer’s abilities are not limited by race, gender, or body size. Dance educators, as the face of dance education, are responsible for teaching and promoting dance equitably regardless of whose body executes the movement.

Eurocentric beauty standards of Whiteness and thinness have created an unspoken hierarchy in dance and beyond, which often excludes and diminishes talented Black dancers of size. Sizeism and racism have often been the unspoken standards used by dancers and educators to judge the development and proficiency of professional and aspiring dancers. Although seeing these as independent issues of a dancer’s identity can be tempting, we would be remiss not to acknowledge the larger systemic forms of oppression at work in the dance field. Racism, sexism, and sizeism often morph and combine to create specific forms of discrimination and obstacles for thick Black women in dance. Furthermore, these oppressive systems can be upheld by a person of any size. Uprooting racism and sizeism in dance requires a collective shift and reimagination of or away from the status quo. Every person should feel that they can learn to dance in any classroom regardless of race, gender, or body size.

BACKGROUND

Dance education in the United States has often upheld racist and fatphobic cultural norms since its inception. Although academic dance programs developed primarily in isolation, the Eurocentric underpinnings and the White woman-dominated leadership resulted in an omission of thick Black women from many dance conversations (Hagood 2008). White body supremacy in dance is a direct reflection of the White supremacist values that presented White bodies as thin and the standard of health. White bodies have been historically constructed as reasonable, innocent, and virtuous compared to Black bodies, historically shaped as ugly, dangerous, excessive, hypersexual, and othered (Kraehe, Gaztambide-Fernández, and Carpenter 2019). Further, without any factual evidence, thick Black women’s bodies were conceptualized as lazy, gluttonous, and unhealthy to dehumanize and control Black women while scaring White women into thinness (Strings 2019).

Sizeism and fatphobia are reinforced by complex beliefs about the assumed superiority and inferiority of oneself and others based on weight, body size, and body shape. Health care professionals often perpetuate these biases by consolidating weight with other health-affecting variables such as genetics, stress, and food access. This conflation often results in the confirmation of antifat stereotypes such as being lazy, inactive, unattractive, or slow (Chrisler and Barney 2017). Despite general medical rhetoric, there is no standard matrix of how much weight is too much for each person’s body (Chrisler and Barney 2017). The body mass index (BMI) was introduced in the 1830s to describe the “average man” quantitatively and popularized in the 1970s. However, BMI is not a reliable measure of a person’s body composition, as it cannot differentiate between fat, muscle, or bone; thus, BMI should not be the sole measure of a person’s health (Callahan 2021). The Western value of thinness is often baseless and disconnected from individual health needs, as weight alone is not a signifier of one’s health. Black Americans, especially Black women, often bear the brunt of this weight stigma due to their higher BMIs (Strings 2019). By focusing solely on BMI, health care providers could incorrectly attribute their patients’ health issues to their higher BMI and advise them to lose weight without looking into other adverse health circumstances (Callahan 2021). Additionally, dance institutions and cultural norms create systems that treat fat bodies as if they are in perpetual need of correction and discipline, regardless of their specific abilities, biological predispositions, or environmental circumstances. The assumption that all thick or fat bodies are unhealthy often results in normalized physical and emotional violence toward people with large bodies.

Although sizeism and racism are theoretical concepts, they are also daily realities baked into the policies, practices, and cultural norms of dance institutions. The way that dancers are taught to understand their bodies, in addition to the bodies of others, often starts long before they begin any formal dance training. Each person is trained to relate to their body through what sociologists title the cycle of socialization (Harro 2000). Through the process of socialization, dancers inherit systems of oppression that are implicitly and explicitly taught through trusted individuals and institutions. These inherited systems of oppression have denied thick Black women their place in the limelight. Thus, our collective capacity to witness, appreciate, or finance their creative work is abysmal.

BIG GIRLS CAN DANCE

Our bodies are political sites affected by our own understandings of ourselves and the societies we reside in. Western society’s explicit value of thinness is evident across the performing arts, especially the dance field. When audiences read bodies on stage, they create their own understandings based on their biases about the dancer’s race, gender, and body size (George-Graves 2010). From studios and classrooms to main stages, we are taught that thin White bodies are more desirable. The assumption that big girls can’t dance is nothing but an egregious fallacy. Dancers’ weight or body size does not determine their potential or ability. Yet, when larger dancers perform well, they are treated as a surprise spectacle. Audiences act as if their body size were an unimaginable hurdle to overcome, reducing their skill and talent to a mere optical illusion.

Perceiving fat bodies as always unhealthy and incapable of dancing is not only false but dangerous. When we hyperfocus on weight, we miss the multitude of ways that dancers can be unhealthy. Consider the many unhealthy practices created and perpetuated by the dance industry to keep dancers thin. For example, academic dance schedules that do not allow time for dancers to eat are unhealthy but normalized. Additionally, programmatic academic procedures such as weigh-ins do not rely on a dancer’s abilities but encourage dancers to lose or gain weight quickly to meet an arbitrary standard. The intentional manipulation of one’s weight for aesthetic appeal can lead to body dysmorphia and eating disorders (Muhlheim 2023).

Anyone can be unhealthy regardless of body size. Automatically assuming that fat dancers are unhealthy and individually responsible for their body size is a gross generalization. Rarely ever is it appropriate to inquire about someone’s medical history, but fat dancers often receive unsolicited medical advice and concern from strangers. Fat dancers should not be expected to prove their health to people who barely know or care about them. Whether it is masked as concern or disgust, the treatment of fat bodies as less deserving or worthy in dance is harmful. Fat dancers are just as valuable as thin dancers, and hatred against them should not be normalized.

When aggregated, dance programs in the United States often serve as gatekeepers to the professional dance communities, strongly influencing the dynamics and trends of the field (McCarthy-Brown and Schupp 2021). The dominance of White Western values and dance forms restricts dance educators from engaging in a broad critical examination of aesthetics and pedagogy that influences the profession to discriminate against or exclude thick Black women. Perpetuating dance cultures that value Whiteness and thinness above all else is neither healthy nor sustainable. We as educators must problematize the assumed connection between health and body size to advocate for dancers’ holistic well-being, dismantling the fatphobic orientation of dance training. When we do not prioritize holistic health and instead only focus on weight and measurements, we encourage students to form unhealthy patterns that limit their ability to build a life in dance.

Thick Like Me performance. Photo by Urban Arts Space staff.

THICK LIKE ME

When thick Black women take center stage, systemic injustices of patriarchy, racism, and fatphobia are resisted and dismantled in favor of justice and liberation. As co-authors, we have created Thick Like Me, a dance-centered organization to support building justice and liberation in the field (Thick Like Me 2024). Thick Like Me programming provides an intersectional analysis of racism, sexism, and fatphobia to advocate for thick Black women in dance and beyond. Through Thick Like Me, we hope to change the structures and rhetoric that uphold dance institutions and oppress thick Black women. Through exposing oppressive hierarchies and celebrating fat Black women who create and perform their work, we move toward justice. As a dance collective, we root ourselves in Black feminist praxis that fully embraces academic theory, embodiment, and action to promote the liberation of all bodies.

The dance field does not need to create more thin bodies. It does need to examine and dismantle the Western hierarchies at the core of its practices. People do not have to be healthy to have value. A person’s current health status does not determine their morality, ability, or humanity. Dance can also be a component of holistic health and wellness of any size. Dance, however, should not be used as a tool of fear to reinforce the hierarchy of thinness. To support longevity in dance, we support shifting the rhetoric from prioritizing thinness to the eight interdependent dimensions of wellness. Dancers of all sizes should experience emotional, physical, occupational, social, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, and financial heath simultaneously to be well (Stoewen 2017). Fulfillment in these areas is essential to ensure that dancers can not only perform specific techniques but can think and make lives for themselves as dynamic artists-scholars.

Within Thick Like Me we celebrate the scholarly and artistic talents of Dr. Alex, Davianna, and Jazelynn (the authors of this article), and support and uplift other thick Black women in dance. Through Thick Like Me we provide necessary counternarratives that invert dominant power dynamics. We advocate for thick Black women who make space for themselves in the field and highlight their creative research practices that support collective embodied liberation. Black women dancers deserve to have their art respected regardless of their body size. We should be able to find liberation and freedom within our bodies without the limitations or systemic oppressions holding us down.

Thick Like Me: The Dawn of Body Liberation, designed by Jazelynn Goudy.

SHIFTING OUR CLASSROOMS

The classroom is the space of great harm or liberation where dancers spend most of their careers. Whether as a professional performer in the rehearsal process, instructor, or student, dancers revisit this space throughout their careers. When dance educators, especially White women dance educators, see a dancer’s size as solely a reflection of one’s personal choices and dismiss dancers of size, the entire dance community is diminished. Dancers with larger bodies have just as much to offer the field as thin dancers, even if the field is not currently fond of their aesthetic. As educators, it is our responsibility to understand the power we wield in the artistic, scholastic, and personal development of our students. They look to us for guidance and take the information we give as keys to their development. We must ensure that race, gender, and body size are not held against dancers as they develop an artistic and scholastic practice. It is our job as dance educators to transfer embodied knowledge through an inclusive approach and be supportive of everybody in that classroom.

To begin the process of uprooting racism and fatphobia in the dance classroom, we suggest the following pedagogical strategies:

• Focus on using verbs when teaching new material. If how the body is moving is more important than a specific shape, emphasize that.

• Encourage your students and give feedback that is not based on how their body looks.

  • Instead of “you all look like one person,” try “you all are dancing well together and embodying the same movement quality.”

  • Instead of “this costume makes you look so thin,” try “I think this costume allows you to dance your best.”

• Avoid creating movement and selecting costumes based on racial and body size stereotypes.

• Embrace the different strengths of your students, and don’t prioritize one over the other.

• Instead of constantly having your dancers of size lift other dancers or hiding them in the background, try intentionally choreographing to their strengths. Communicate to them and the group that they are an asset.

• Stay actively engaged in dialogue with students about how movement in the class affects their bodies (causing pain, strain, injury, etc.). Create modifications if needed.

• Share the work of differently sized, differently abled, and diverse dancers through performance opportunities.

• Include images of diverse dancers throughout studio spaces and advertisements. Showing dancers of different races and body types will promote an inclusive atmosphere.

• Create a community that holds dancers accountable for racist and fatphobic comments and actions. Embrace the discomfort and enforce the corrections to protect those who are most vulnerable.

• Have difficult conversations about sizeism and racism within the studio. Try reflecting on personal experiences, media examples, stereotypes, and historical context that shape how people of different races and body sizes have been oppressed.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The hierarchy within dance that relegates thick Black women to the bottom is unacceptable. As dance educators, we must support body liberation and uproot the unhealthy cultures dance propagates. Dance should promote holistic health and body liberation in which all bodies are valued, welcomed, and unharmed. The destruction of this detrimental system is the responsibility of all within the dance community. These efforts will support the creation of dance spaces that welcome all bodies and support their success in life and dance.

Alesondra Christmas Stapleton

Jazelynn Goudy

Davianna Griffin

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).