There are few things in the world tougher to build than a Dancer’s physique. It has taken so much out of so many of us. There is no wonder then that we feel inadequate no matter how toned, lengthened, straightened and sculpted we are.
We chip away as much to look the part as we do to dance the Dance. It has always been central to executing movement at the highest height. But what this heavily ingrained expectation of high functionality has done is made the Art heavily biased against and inaccessible to those on the heavier side. What’s worse is that it’s also made girls who, by physical standards, fit age-old conventions heavily and steadily insecure about their appearance and proportions. The smack, scare and (perceived) scourge of fatness, makes living a rather heavy experience, let alone Dancing – an act that may well be both the toughest and most relieving pursuit on earth. Clearly, we are living in a fat contradiction and the weight (for lack of a better word but no lack of play on it) is a lot to carry.
It is frustrating and humiliating to acknowledge that we haven’t solved the “fat girl” stigma as yet. Neither in our societies nor in our studios. In the most “evolved” corners of the world, being fat is still a very shameful thing. Sadly and more often than not, the solution has been oversimplified to: “Lose Weight” and not “Let’s Broaden our Minds” instead. The realm of Classical Dance, in particular, has been a terribly discriminatory world for Girls of all shapes and sizes. Because a stipulated body type suited to Dancers has been declared aeons ago, in texts that are home to the last word on a large part of our practice and performance even today.
The same texts, experts and decision makers of yore, while incredibly knowledgeable, have definitely laid the groundwork for what came to be a pretty solid principle:
“Fat girls don’t/shouldn’t/can’t Dance.”
(Their perception of fat obviously doesn’t account for homo sapiens’ naturally different body types, by birth, demographic, privilege and geography. However, their recommendations are not made from the point of view of access; they are made from the point of view of what they saw as a visual and functional “ideal”.)
This purported truth has been contested and nullified by some brilliant, bold and talented Dancers – choreographers, teachers and performers – who wouldn’t necessarily fit the Dancer-body dimensions that have been perceived as optimal to Dance (and dare-I-say-it, getting through life).
Nearly every Dancer (if not Girl) has been “fed” the ‘Fat-is-Foul’ story straight out of her Cerelac bowl. Around the time she registers and begins to react to her own name, she knows being fat is a bad or wrong thing. That it makes one ineligible for pretty much IT ALL. Over the years, Girls and Women, who have been told and taken as true these surreal dimensions and therefore, visual expectations of a Dancer, have naturally passed these on to those they have influenced, taught or given birth to. This is neither rare nor unexpected. And none of them are to be blamed for doing so. But the damage is deep and one that is going to take deep courage and cleansing to correct.
Junoon is a blanket attempt and movement to revolutionize Classical Dance, first and foremost, in its access to any and all. We have sought to be inclusive in ethos and action long before “inclusivity” became a trending word on social media. For this reason and more, we aim to rewrite the narrative that has fed societies a fat falsehood that often deters talent from Dance and plenty of other things. The process begins by identifying, exposing and erasing the very “weighty” story we have floated to generation after generation, for centuries.
The next logical step is to induct individuals of varied shapes, sizes and strengths into our fold because it makes us diverse – a quality that has made a tangible difference to the universal progress of the human race, over the course of history.
3 years into Junoon operating regularly on our Rural Outreach in Gujarat, we had three Girls finally make the leap to join us. I had been eager to welcome them long before they actually made their request, but they held themselves back for the simple reason that they are shaped the way they are. Poornima, Manju and Lalita don’t have the traditional “Dancer-look” but they have every bit the “Dancer-feel”. Natural movers, strong and so impressively quick on the uptake, they’ve carved out a beautiful and significant space for themselves in our dancing squad from the very day they walked into their first session. At a village performance where 80 of our Dancers performed together, their grace, poise and smiles were most appreciated. While I could already see it in the rehearsals, their presence in the squad took on a whole new meaning and potency up on stage, before hundreds of people. That is the power of Dance. That is what it should do and be for everyone that takes to it. To me, Poornima, Manju and Lalita are responsible representatives of the Art, who carry it so well. This, incidentally, is what the Art needs – confident, dignified and efficient practitioners. It needs to let in and not leave out. That’s where a fat shift begins. It’s where the story begins to have more depth, width and bandwidth.
Of the three, Poornima is also a passionate photographer. And she readily helps with documenting all our dancing and prep in all the formats and numbers we need it done. Manju and Lalita are very strong team players in the sports mandatory for the kids to engage with on our umbrella curriculum. They do not take their practice for granted and work as much on supplementary training as they do on the core components of Classical Dance training. They are the first three to break the mould in mindset and courtesy them, there will be more, soon to discover the Dancer in them.
For aeons, we have destructively “fed” our Girls a poisoning story.
Thinness, fatness, height, weight, calories in and calories out have consumed so much of our minds that these must be spilled from them if they are to go back into full working order. I have been a teenage girl, like any other, majorly affected by standards of beauty, shape and size in the domain of Dance and outside. I am a woman, less affected now, but nevertheless motivated to look a certain way to fit a part – the part I have to look to measure up to my role as a Professional Dancer. Fitting this part has meant moving (in a conscious manner) for more than half my existence on earth. If I were to do the Math, I’m pretty sure I’d have Danced or worked out and around it for more hours than I have slept. There’s nothing wrong with putting in the work. But there is something majorly wrong with creating a barrier to entry that disallows anyone from dreaming to be and indeed taking that first step towards being a Dancer because of the body they find themselves in.
There is a learning process, across disciplines, that taps into every individual’s strengths and inclinations.
It’s time for us to implement and induct every Girl into a training plan that works for her. Our bodies are magical. And that’s a fat truth we would do well to feed ourselves whilst discarding our systems of all that weighs it down.
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