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Fat Dance | Dança Gorda was a project funded by British Council's International Collaboration Grants. It aimed to contribute to the development of a multinational artistic community focused on fat dance. The field of dance has long ignored the marginalisation of fat people; Fat Dance | Dança Gorda was an opportunity to focus not only on inclusion but on fat embodiment’s relevance for the fields of dance and choreography. The project consisted of an exchange between two prominent fat choreographers/performers, Gillie Kleiman (UK) and Jussara Belchior (Brazil), working with performers locally in the English Midlands and São Paulo, in a collaboration between FABRIC (UK) and Corpo Rastreado (Brazil).

The two exchange residencies involved fat dancers local to São Paulo, Brazil (April 2025) and Nottingham, UK (July 2025), meeting collaborators through open calls. Documentary filmmaker and fat screendance scholar Magdalena Hutter followed the research and produced a documentary film exploring the project and its themes, which is currently available for screening; please contact producer Beckie Darlington: beckie@haus-projects.com.

Gillie has been experimenting with community dance with and for fat people since 2022. Since 2025, this has mostly been in the form of an ongoing group - a 'troupe', meeting weekly at Dance City, Newcastle upon Tyne. The Fat Dance Troupe will present a performance to an invited audience in February 2025.

The Fat Dance Sessions - Newcastle upon Tyne, 2023-4

The Fat Dance Sessions are an opportunity for people in larger bodies to dance together in Newcastle upon Tyne. In studios in the city centre, fat dancer and choreographer Gillie Kleiman will lead a series of sessions of creative, exploratory movement for fat people, for us to reclaim our dancing for ourselves, get to know each other, and simply have fun moving.

The sessions are open to anyone who experiences themselves as fat. Other words that are often used are plus-sized, or living in larger bodies. If you're interested but not sure how to think about fatness, this might be a helpful resource, but it's only a starting point.

Fat people are routinely and systemically the objects of discrimination. As such, it's really important that we keep ourselves safe, so we won't be sharing publicly the exact dates and times of the sessions. The first season took place weekly throughout autumn 2023 on Friday evenings. Season Two will be fortnightly on Wednesday evenings. If you'd like to come, please email Gillie: gilliekleiman@gmail.com.

Fat Contact - Portland, Oregon, 2024

Fat Contact is an artistic research project that explores the ways in which the bodies of fat people come into contact with each other. Inspired by early versions of the American dance form Contact Improvisation, the Japanese wrestling practice Sumo, and the sculptures of Eva Fàbregas, the sessions will be exploratory workshops creating choreographic structures in a playing field informed by and curious about our own fat embodiments and their capacity to create meaning. We will fall, fold and falter, spoon and smush and spread; we will push and prang and ping. All fat people welcome, at all levels of experience, for as much of it as you like.

Fat Contact Portland was supported by Body Home Fat Dance with monies from Another Route including a seed commission from Jerwood Arts.

friend is a performance for a non-professional dancer to present in their home to an audience of only their friends. The fixed score, made up of distinct components, comes together into a 30-minute choreography which playfully folds the performer and their performance into cultural history. Rather than asking the performers to talk about their lives, friend is a form of portraiture that allows the audience to see their dear one completely anew, invoking the strange potentialities of contemporary dance to tenderly invite the friends to see and be seen in a novel way. It involves iconic post-modern American dance performance Trio A, two versions of I Will Always Love You, karaoke, and a small but effective smoke machine. It gestures to existing practices of domestic performance (beatnik poetry recitals, children’s pop concerts) whilst creating the context for introducing performers and audience alike to the skill and joy of watching contemporary dance through a series of carefully-designed discussion prompts over a shared post-show meal. It is craftful, ridiculous, and very very friendly.