Big and Beautiful Women in Salsa Dancing

One of the top new years resolutions for many is to lose a considerable amount of weight in 2011. Especially those big and beautiful male and female students who are taking Salsa dance classes are convinced that they have much more to gain by losing weight.

But, is this “the truth and nothing more than the truth” for Salsa dancing?

A Brief History
Big & Beautiful Women (BBW's) were the norm in the middle ages. Ruben's nude paintings of BBW's were a big hit during those centuries. Having more weight than the average person stood for wealth and fertility. Things changed in Western societies when Twiggy started to dictate the women's fashion in the 60's – and throwing away the “Marilyn Monroe round curves ideal” in the process - and culminated with the designers and the “skinny” catwalk models of the 1990's. The movement of “Skinny is Better” went into overdrive in the 2000's when several models became bulimic, then anorexic, and some models died because of these problems. The Fat Acceptance movement – also known as “Fat Pride”, “Fat Liberation” or “Fat Power” - started around the late 1960's as a reaction to the general American view of Americans saying that obesity was detrimental to the community, by means of decreasing human efficiency, and that obese people interfere with labor productivity. In the following years, several physical health issues were also directly attributed to obesity.  

Now, obese people have the American Fat Pride Movement gaining popularity in the United States, and the first “Miss Maxi” beauty pageants are being held in the Netherlands for women having size 46 or more. Some predict that 2011 will be the year in which obese people are less discriminated against and that they will learn to accept their “overweight” instead of engaging in (dangerous) “yo-yo diets”. But, in spite of these positive developments, the designers are still not taking the obese into account whilst designing their haute couture.

How about being a BBW in Salsa?
One of the cultural differences between “white” and “black” people is the beauty ideal for women. In the west, women should be slim with small butts and large breasts. In Africa, the Caribbean and in large parts of South America, BBW's are still “the norm” and skinny girls are discriminated against. No wonder that “padded undies” are growing in popularity in some of these continents and countries. BBW were also very popular when Salsa dancing started to grow on a global scale in the 90's. As the Salsa dance industry became more “whitened”, so did the norm for how beautiful dancers should look like. Some Salsa congress and festival organizers will not accept fat or obese people performing on their stages and – consequently – many Salsa choreographers will not accept obese dancers in their show teams. The dance has also become much more complicated and faster making it nearly impossible for BBW to execute Hammerlocks, Cuddles, Cross Body Wraps, Dips & Tricks and fast Multiple Spins comfortably.

Watch this video clip of Jazmin's audition tape for “Dance Your Ass Off” in which she dances and talks about some problems she has with her obesity.

Difference between Big and Beautiful Men and Women?
Men are required to only know how to lead well and smell great, so fat or obese men have little to no problems in Salsa land. But, fat or obese women have to work twice as hard to keep up the fast pace of modern Salsa dancing and for getting good dance partners.

You can comment below on the advantages and disadvantages of being Big and Beautiful in the international Salsa scene.