THICK LIKE ME

Our
Story

Thick Like Me: The Dawn of Body Liberation

Exhibition Performance

Urban Arts Space - Columbus, Ohio, 2023

About TLM

Thick Like Me (TLM) is an ongoing exhibition of performance, artistic expression, research, and film featuring full-size Black women dancers. By uplifting the creative work of these women, we begin dismantling the stigmas of fatphobia in dance and support intersectional justice in the dance community. We share how to acknowledge, celebrate, prepare, and mentor thick dancers. We problematize the assumed connection between health and body size to advocate for dancers’ holistic well-being. We encourage consistent discussion and reflection to resist the perpetual oppression of thick Black women in dance and beyond.

What We Do

Thick Like Me is about Body Liberation for all, focusing on the intersection of fat Black Women in Dance. We reimagine what types of artists and kinds of bodies are celebrated in fine art spaces. Centering fat Black women through the creative process, exhibitions, performances, and talk-backs invert hierarchal systems of oppression. When thick Black women take center stage, systemic injustices of patriarchy, racism, and fatphobia are resisted and dismantled in favor of justice and liberation.

We excavate the underlying theories and histories that have resulted in the subjugation of fat black women in dance. We firmly root ourselves in praxis that engages with theories, including Standpoint Theory, Critical Race Theory, Black Feminist Theory, Body Liberation, and Black Performance Theory. Additionally, we highlight counternarratives by uplifting current practitioners who support the liberation of their own bodies and everyone else's. We deploy interactive education and learning strategies that center positionality, critical self-reflection, community collaboration, and liberation that stem from collective justice and power redistribution.