當我第一眼看到四個體積龐大厚實的四位舞者在這張照片時，掃了一眼標題：「Super-Size」，心想：「嗯，很貼切卻有點毒的標題。」細讀了內文後，瞭解了這個來自古巴的Danza Voluminosa舞團背後那股對跳舞的熱愛和堅持。

面對著人們的異樣眼光和纖細結實身材的主流思維，肥胖者常常成了非戰之罪的受害者。他們熱愛舞蹈，卻必須受制於社會主流意志加諸在他們身上的種種觀念上的枷鎖。但是，他們以紮實的舞步與對跳舞的堅持，贏得了觀眾的掌聲，也改變了人們對舞蹈應該是輕盈跳耀的刻板映像。

舞者Mailin Daza訴說著她的內心轉變，她說：「小時後媽媽告訴我胖女孩不能跳舞，但我總是夢想著成為一位芭蕾舞者。在這裡，我覺得我是一位真正的芭蕾舞者。」這個舞團也試著扭轉人們對這樣的表演所產生的一些負面影響。「我們並非在歌頌或讚揚肥胖，或是傳達另一種『不可反對過胖』的道德觀﹔相反的，我們試著透過舞蹈讓更多的人來面對自己肥胖的事實。」我很欣賞他們真誠面對自己的那種勇氣。

這篇報導是摘錄自2007 年8月6號，聯合報的『紐約時報專欄』，附上原稿的網址，有興趣的朋友可以上去查看全文。

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/world/americas/30havana.html?_r=1&;oref=slogin

A Super-Size Dance Troupe Leaps From Ridiculous to Sublime

HAVANA – The prima ballerina of the Danza Voluminosa troupe weighs 130 kilograms, and as she thumps gracefully across the floor, she gives new meaning to the words stage presence. Her bodies a riotous celebration of weight – of ample belly and breasts, of thick legs and arms, of the crushing reality of gravity.

“I always liked to dance,” the dancer, Mailin Daza, said later. “I wanted to dance in the classical ballet, but my mother told me fat girls could not dance. I always dreamed of being a ballerina. With this group, I feel I am a ballerina.”

Formed a decade ago by Juan Miguel Mas, this company of obese dancers has become a cultural phenomenon in Cuba, breaking stereotypes here of dance, redefining the aesthetics of beauty and, along the way, raisign the self-esteem of heavyset people.

While the troupe is not the first to employ larger dancers, its popu;arity comes as a surprise in a country known for its muscular, lean dancers in every genre from classical ballet to salsa. After all, food is rationed here, most people must walk or bike to work and the streets are filled with hard, lean bodies.

Mr. Mas, a 136-kilogram choreographer and dancer who movers like a pampered cat, admits that her often uses the stereotypical humor of his dancers’ proportions to bring in audiences. The troupe is well known for its parody of “Swan Lake” and engages in hilarious renditions of dancing clichés like the cancan.

But Mr. Mas and his troupe are deadly serious about dance, and once the laughter dies down, they are capable of performing moving pieces that drill into the universal themes of love, death and erotic longing. The audience forgets the joke and begins to feel the dance, he said.

“We use humor to get the public in,” he said. “Then we can hit them with something stronger.”

Mr. Mas, 41, also choreographs pieces on themes like the tragedy of gluttony, love between obese couples, the prejudice that fat people face and the psychic toll of obesity.
One of the troupe’s recent successes, “Sweet Death, “ tells the story of a woman who, after being rejected by her family, tries to commit suicide by eating huge quantities of candy.

Mr. Mas said it would be a mistake to think that his work was intended to glorify or sanctify obesity, or even to deliver a moralistic message that one should not discriminate against the overweight. Rather, he said, the troupe’s art tries to face the reality of obesity while giving larger people a chance to express themselves through dance, a chance they care denied from childhood in most dance classes.

But something strange happens when the troupe takes the stage. Classical and modern dance often give the impression of human beings flying, freed of the earth. Because of the size of the dancers in Mr. Mas’s troupe, however, the work of Danza Voluminosa conveys something more earthy and human. Fat people move differently, he said, and the choreography must change. “We are more mountainous,” he said with a smile.

The dancers’ movements are often slower than those of their slender colleagues. They seem to grip the floor rather than abandon it, keeping a low center of gravity, often crouching or dancing while kneeling or lying on the ground.

The dancers who have been with the troupe for years say that when the group started in November 1996, they faced ridicule and laughter. These days, people take them seriously.

“We have always had those who laugh at first, but by the end of the show there is a standing ovation,” said Xiomara Gonzalez, 43, an 82-kilogram mother of two who gave up her job to dance. "And this is a beautiful thing, a very beautiful thing."