it's official

I am officially giving two workshops at the NOLOSE conference. One is "Fat-Friendly Stretching and Strengthening" and will be an expansion of the warm-up I do with the Fly Girls. It's going to be fun. The other one I am co-facilitating with someone else and it is called "What about the Children: A panel discussion and workshop, addressing the child-focused fat panic zeitgeist and what we as parents, educators, health care professionals, and other free-range fat folks can do to fight it." We have five panel members: me, Matilda St. John, Marilyn Wann, Natalie Boero, and Dana Rosenberg and I am proud to say I assembled the panel and actually came up with the idea of a panel on this topic. Go me. It is some super-dooper rad-fatty action. Marilyn, Matilda, and Natalie were all published in "The Fat Studies Reader", Dana does HAES curriculum at the middle school where she works, and Matilda and I run the Fly Girls. Dana is bringing some seriously interesting stuff regarding how kids view fat and how to talk to kids about fat and the workshop as it stands is a hybrid of ideas she and I both independently proposed to NOLOSE.

I am really excited about both workshops, but the panel is feeling really urgent and personal right now. Three of us on the panel have young children so we see the fat-panic crazy from a number of angles. I feel very fortunate to have the ties and connections to the fat community that I do and I hope the panel and workshop create some positive action.

More to say on all this, but I will save that for another time.

FREE Day of Dance with Big Moves: Sunday April 25th in Berkeley, CA

So... Think YOU Can Dance?

Big Moves Bay Area invites dancers and dancers-to-be of all ages, shapes, sizes and experience levels to a FREE DAY OF DANCE. Experienced, size-positive instructors will offer classes in jazz, Bollywood, and burlesque. You'll also be treated to a short performance by the Phat Fly Girls, Big Moves' dance troupe for the curvaceous and confident.

Big Moves Bay Area’s Day of Dance
Sunday April 25, 2010 * 2-6pm
The Beat Dance Studio
2560 9th St. (between Parker and Dwight", Berkeley, CA

Oh yeah... did we mention it's FREE?

Come for the full day, or drop in for one class, just be sure to arrive 15 minutes before any class to register.

For more information, email matilda@bigmoves.org. Visit us on the web at http://www.bigmoves.org.

2:00 - 2:45 Warmup and Jazz Fundamentals
2:45 - 3:45 Bollywood
3:45 - 4:00 Break
4:00 - 5:00 Burlesque
5:00 - 5:45 Jazz
5:45 - 6:00 Phat Fly Girl performance