Critical faculties
UK dance writer
Donald Hutera chooses the fat in the first of an ongoing series of commentary-filled columns
I've got fat on the brain. By which I mean, I'm thinking about the profusion of well-upholstered people in the UK and wondering why we see so little of them, so to speak, on our dance stages. Aren't they all around us? If not, they're bound to be at large in increasing numbers. According to a recent Daily Mail editorial, 'Britain is facing an obesity time bomb.' Wouldn't it be salutary to prepare for the explosion by familiarising ourselves with the big and the beefy? Dance could be just the answer.
At this year's British Dance Edition in Cambridge there were special bills for Asian-based work and what my ticket stub labelled as 'Black Arts.' The latter term conjures up images of necromantic practices at the witching hour. What it actually referred to was a late-night slot for artists of colour operating on a small-scale. In the same lump-it-all-together spirit, I recommend the establishment of a new aesthetic ghetto. How about Oversize Arts?
Imagine the relief. Professional dancers in particular would no longer have to fight the battle of the bulge. Indulgence could be the new buzzword. Classical ballet, traditionally the domain of often, anorexic young sylphs of either gender, is a good place to start. Mightn't it be refreshing, not to say revelatory, if Darcey Bussell could slip back into Swan Lake after spending her current maternity leave gorging on four-cheese pizzas topped by hot fudge sundaes? Her male partner, however, would be well advised to bulk up by lifting weights.
Modern dance tends to be more accommodating territory for those broader in the beam. But even here body fascists may rear their ugly heads. All shapes and sizes and, more to the point, degrees of skill are on display in Resolution!, a six-week season of one-off triple-bills held annually at The Place. One evening this past winter commenced with a duet between two women, an underfed blonde and a more ample brunette. Pity that a disgruntled journalistic colleague found it necessary to remark, in print, about the latter's size. Okay, there's no getting around the fact that the young lady in question had a big bum, flagged up by the tight, bright red trousers she sported. But it wasn't her body to which I objected. If anything I remember thinking, 'You go, girl!' And clearly she knew how to move. It was from the content of the work itself that insoluble problems arose.
Tango and especially flamenco place few restrictions on physical dimension, and age is positively valued. Some practitioners are living proof that pulchritude needn't be a fat-free zone, while the longevity of certain careers has put paid to the tyranny of youth common in other dance forms.
Earlier this year The Times dispatched me to review a small but entertainingly varied flamenco festival at Sadler's Wells. 'In Flamenco', I cooed in the opening critique, 'old and fat are no hindrance. There's much to be said for a culture that respects its elders, who are often as weighty in experience as flesh.' When the review was published, I was amused to discover that the word 'large' had been substituted for the presumably politically incorrect 'fat.' (Although the sub-editors usually do a fine, even sensitive job of cutting my prose down to size, every now and then one of the changes they ring can be inexplicably off the mark. I'm especially fond of 'dry humping,' my description for an action in Vincent Dance Theatre's Drop Dead Gorgeous, being converted into 'slap and tickle.')
One of the performances I caught in the debut, 2002 edition of the disability arts festival Xposure featured a young white woman whom no one could peg as petite. Gussied up in a semi-formal gown, she swivelled and shimmied high on the soundtrack's hot, seductive rhythms. This dancer's pleasure in moving was so gorgeously palpable it brought tears to my eyes.
Shoving all the attendant health issues aside, fat could become trendy. What solutions are being suggested by those who choose to sound alarm bells, rather than celebrate the news? - Drastic reduction of adverts for sweets and high-calorie treats. Great. Not that the food industry will bite that bullet. But a tax on junk food? - Sounds like a means to fill up coffers rather than significantly undermine gluttonous appetites. What about wider education about diet, nutrition and exercise? Great. And where might dance fit in with the impending crisis? Well, extra funding for masses of classes and workshops and productions and talks and the like would be nice. (Is this where the junk-food tax could be channelled?) Such rampant activity may not guarantee a drop in the amount of blubber British Citizens are hauling around on their frames, but it could provide a helluva lot of non-sizeist fun.
Donald Hutera writes regularly for The Times, Time Out, Dance Europe, Dance Now, and many other publications. He edited the Autumn 2003 edition of Animated.
contact donaldhutera@yahoo.com
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Animated: Spring 2004