The F-Word

When Nothing To Lose makes its world premiere at the Sydney Festival it will feature seven ‘fat’ dancers. As Drinkwater says, “A lot of the work that I do artistically and politically is about reclaiming spaces that are prohibited to bigger bodies and the dance world is definitely one of those.” Having spent her whole life in dance, Champion acknowledges that although there are some practical drivers behind the industry’s physical preferences the art form suffers because of it: “When you’re very athletic and train eight hours a day you probably will develop a certain body type... but I have seen dancers I know who are fantastic not get work because they are perceived as being too big or not the right shape.”

“We are bombarded with images of larger people but most of the time it’s coming from a reductionist perspective,” Drinkwater argues. “Y’know, them on their weight loss journey or whatever. Or, it’s coming from a place of shame or panic around the obesity epidemic.”

For this reason Nothing To Lose contains absolutely no health messages – a fact which clearly delights Drinkwater. “Kate was so willing to work with us and our bodies to find what it was we could really do and to try and create something that we haven’t seen before in Australia.”

“Some people have jumped to the assumption that I’m doing this voyeuristically or as some kinda freak show but I made it very clear to Kelli Jean that wasn’t where I was coming from,” says Champion. Drinkwater concurs, adding, “Kate is not taking the performers and asking them to perform dance moves that we’ve traditionally seen with smaller bodies. Hopefully, that in itself will broaden people’s perception of what a dancer’s body can look like.”

“I’m always interested with things like how contentious the word ‘fat’ is,” Drinkwater admits. Champion observes, “Journalists often ask us if they’re professional dancers and we like to joke that we got them from the Fat Professional Dance Company.”