My there has been so much....

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOO much has been going on. So a quick rundown is in order:
- I have tonsillitis, again. Sucks so hard it bites....BIG TIME
- I'm really tired
- My sister had knee surgery recently and I worry day and night

However, even in bed my sister is a mover and shaker. Here is a recent project she is working on:

Jiggly Boo Dance Crew is putting out the call for dancers/movers who identify as having a "non-traditional" dancer’s body, specifically a "fat"* body.

JBDC is a much needed project for exploring the intellectual and creative potential of the fat dancing body. Within the Western performance context, fat bodies are systematically excluded or typecast into demeaning or ancillary roles.

Within this framework, Jiggly Boo Dance Crew will run a series of workshops which will culminate in a performance. These workshops will create a space in which other self-identified female “fat” dancers, movers, and performers, can dialogue about the following questions: What is a "fat dancing body"? How are fat bodies read, understood, felt (emotively and viscerally) and represented? What does it mean to identify oneself as a “fat dancing body” and what are the political implications of identifying oneself as such? How can (re)presentations of fat dancing bodies be understood alongside critical discussions of race, gender, sexuality, and the political movement of bodies that have been traditionally marginalized and invisibilized within Western stage dance?

Through these workshops, which will build towards a final performance, we hope to personalize and politicize the fat dancing body and the fat dancer. Jiggly Boo Dance Crew hopes to re-write and re-imagine these scripts of the fat dancing body. We are neither invisible, nor hyper-visible objects of ridicule.

Workshops will be based on movement, academics, as well as the participants' personal experiences as dancers. By marrying readings from fields such as fat studies; critical race theory; gender, sex, and sexuality studies; (dis)ability studies; and dance and performance studies with sessions that emphasize movement, gesture, and performance, we will create a space that views theory and praxis as mutually informative and necessary for achieving our goals.

Potential participants need not have had “formal” training, and may come from any kind of movement/dance background. JBDC will meet weekly on Sundays from January 24, 2010 until April 18, 2010 from 4-6pm. Workshops will be held on the NYU campus.

*On the usage of “fat”: Jiggly Boo Dance Crew intentionally reclaims and uses the word "fat" as opposed to other euphemisms (i.e. "plus-sized" or "big-boned") to explore the politics of size-deviant bodies. Our reclamatory gesture also pays homage to area studies, such as queer studies, that have viewed the reappropriation of words as part of a larger political process of creating visibility and challenging hegemonic discourses and systems of oppression.

Interested? You should be. Living in the TriState area? Check it out. Email JigglyBooDanceCrew@gmail.com for more info and questions...cause I can't answer them..