Every girl in the Western world who grew up in the 2000s knows that if you were more than a size 8 (UK), people thought you were fat. Yes. Fat. Not a bit overweight or chubby. Just fat. If you wanted to dedicate yourself to professions like modelling or dance, our references were crystalline. Even the Hip-Hop dance movies with Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Briana Evigan and Jessica Alba – they all followed the 90-60-90 pattern.

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Women's sexualisation is something that’s been very present in our history, and we’ve come to assimilate it as something normative. Every woman in my life has felt the need to change her body because of societal influences at some point in her life. Despite the prototype of the "girl 10" having changed over the years, most people still defend the flat stomach and the lack of stretch marks.

Yet, it seems that the visibility of our physique has a direct effect on our work - even before we’ve been seen working. This topic has been silenced for a long time, and although the industry is changing little by little, there is still a need to highlight people, give them their flowers and vindicate their talent. To Francesca Miles' question "How do we move our culture forward in a way that levels the playing field, celebrating and welcoming people of all genders?" I would add, and all sizes.

The Influence of the Classical Body

These references and stereotypes come to us from many places, they’re prevalent in dance and stem from ballet. In classical dance, it’s all about women who are slim and not too tall and the ensuing language which often describes them as slender and elevated. Brian Nolan describes it in his article The Ideal Ballet Body for Informa Dance magazine in Australia: "In reality, the ideal physique for a female classical dancer is slim, with a long neck, a short to medium length torso, long legs with complimentary long arms and high insteps." He says that if you do not have this body type, do not give up - just keep trying.
 

The body stereotyping doesn't only happen in classical styles, it also happens in Hip-Hop...a style that was born in the street, with people from the streets, and is usually dressed in loose and baggy clothes. It is completely accepted in our collective Hip-Hop imagination that dancers must be slim and visibly muscular, so says the creator of Fatgirlsdance - Cathleen Meredith. She created her Hip-Hop dance group in New York for plus-size women because she couldn't find one. In an interview with Stance on Dance, Cathleen tells us how whenever she went to take a class people were surprised, not because she was the best dancer in the class, but because she danced well...even though she was fat. I too have had to listen to similar comments after a performance: "I didn't think you could dance so well with that kind of body." This not only belittles all the training and effort we put in, but it’s a form of humiliation and negative judgement.

The truth is that there are different factors that affect our body shape: genetics, length/width of our bones, diet, hormonal changes, etc. The problem is that instructors, casting agents and the people in power in this industry ask you to lose weight because they think it’s a healthy thing. They encourage you go to physical and psychological extremes because they think it’s healthy, telling you it's better for you. They sell it like - the thinner you are, the healthier you are. Numerous studies have shown that to dance you need to build muscles that can withstand the hours of rehearsal and the numerous performances day after day. Dietitian Rachel Fine, MS, RD, CSSD, says: "You need to have the muscular strength to help hold yourself up in the air. A dancer who has less muscle, because they're so focused on maintaining a low body mass, is going to be harder to lift." In her 2010 study, Rachel talks about how dancers with very low body fat are more prone to rapid fatigue. Fatigue, and the resulting loss of coordination and control, left them at a higher risk of injury: "Having a healthier body mass and healthier muscle balance is what's going to decrease the likelihood of getting injured." A 2013 study by the National Centre for Biomechanical Information found that "dancers had a three times higher risk of suffering from eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa and EDNOS.'' The study indicates that particularly in the world of dance women have a higher rate of suffering from these disorders due to the media and social pressure to which they are subjected.

Big Bodies Against The Screen

In "Make Some Noise for the Ladies" Sexism in European Hip-Hop Dance Battles, Francesca Miles talks about how she has felt sexualised at some point in her dance career, which is unfortunately commonplace for us in this industry. She talks about how dancers are introduced as "beautiful b-girls", how femininity is often exalted for no reason and how unnecessarily a dance battle somehow becomes a beauty contest. However, this impediment of beauty in Hip-Hop is very present, especially, if you don't meet the indicated standards. Think of any show you've seen with dancers, either on TV, at concerts, MTV music awards, or even in your dance classes. I'm sure the first image that comes to mind is of a bunch of girls with at least their legs uncovered and they’re all of similar proportions. Even on iconic performances like Missy Elliot’s Get Ur Freak On at the MTV VMAs in 2001 this was the case.

Everything is increasingly digitised in our society and, although it may seem unfair, the reality is that your Instagram profile is the first thing many agencies and representatives look at before they see you dance in person. Deanne Kearney points out in her essay Derogatory Dancing: Heteronormative Inscriptions on Female Hip-Hop Dancers in Breaking and Commercial Spheres that several of her friends have landed big contracts with brands like Nike. As a dancer, you should not only have videos of you dancing, but also photos showing off your figure. However, this can impede dancers with non-normative bodies as there is still a lot of fat-phobia on social networks, which results in many people not uploading this content for fear of hate and abuse.

Recently a friend in the industry was telling me how her trainer had been contacted to do a commercial for a well-known brand of sporting events. This brand gave her one condition: "I don't care how well your dancers dance, I just want them to have a good body and a pretty face so they look good on-screen." So, the hours of training, the choreography, or the quality of movement - none of that mattered. They just needed to look good on screen. That's how dancer Trina Nicole felt, who has danced with Beyonce, Lizzo, and Nao, but not before she went through an identity crisis because of her size. Trina shares in the video series My Body Rules how she felt uncomfortable in the dance studio in her early days, how she hid at the back of the class and didn't want to be seen and covered herself in baggy clothes. That was until she decided to form her own class for women who felt the same way - The Curve Catwalk, the UK's 1st Plus Size Dance Class - a safe space, free from judgement, where dancers can feel like dancers, without the need to label their bodies. Such was its success that Trina became a Nike ambassador appearing on the big screen in Piccadilly Circus, London. She was able to give opportunity and visibility to plus-size dancers, although she’d like that label to disappear one day: “Why can’t I just be seen as a dancer? Why do I have to be a plus-size dancer? That’s already making someone seen as other.”

Staying Positive In Big Castings

In a workshop at the University of East London, British dancer and choreographer Kymberlee Jay explained how difficult it was for her to break into the Hip-Hop industry in the UK. In addition to the fact that it was a male-dominated industry and she was a woman, there was the fact that she did not have a normative body. Albeit, thanks to previous medical studies, she understood that despite her physiognomy she could be an athletic dancer on the same level as others with a slimmer physiognomy. Although she encountered some early setbacks due to these factors, she found her place in the group Myself UK Dance Company by Kloe Dean - an all-female Hip-Hop collective that promotes the individuality of the female dancer, accepting all body types and empowering them under the motto "I Love Myself." Additionally, they often hold workshops and panel discussions promoting feminism and the acceptance of non-normative bodies in the Hip-Hop industry.

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We also see this discrimination in West End musicals and theatres with plus-size women playing the outsider or the "special" friend. Yet we never see them in the lead role that a person with a normative body might play. Is this because casting agents don't even think about someone outside that profile? Jennifer Greenwood, vice president of Equity's Women's Committee, told The Stage: "I think casting directors and those in power have a responsibility to take this seriously because our job is to reflect the world as it is to the audience. If we present a world on stage and screen where only thin people are worthy of romance or love, we are fostering feelings of inadequacy in our audience, as well as driving out those plus-size actors."

We need to educate the industry and witness all body types in all actions. We need people to feel reflected in what they see, without the need to create body shaming or trauma.

The Importance of Representation