A group of dancers practice during their rehearsals in Brooklyn.
What you hear are steps derived from the pride of your curves and a few extra pounds.
Wanda Amaya, is a dancer in this group and she thinks about it: “I love my body and I love to dance with Pretty Big Movement”.
These dancers have been in music videos of Janet Jackson and other renowned artists and have also walked on hundreds of stages around the world during the last 12 years.
And when they are asked to reveal the secret of their success: “Be yourself”, it is the golden rule of the director and founder of Pretty Big Movement, Akira I. Armstrong.
Armstrong created the first group of dancers plus size in New York and in the world because she was tired of facing countless rejections, in those times when she was dying to dance professionally and she was rejected for her physical appearance and her extra pounds.
In this group of professional dancers, you do not have to have a body with the measurements of a beauty queen and although size does matter, here the measurements are not complex.
Although for each rehearsal you have to submit to the rigor of the tape measure, because you have to have the costumes ready for the presentations that are coming and meet the requirements of the clients, who are looking for the art of their curvilinear figures.
“Of course we do, we all want to lose weight, but for us the most important thing is to be healthy and meet the requirements of each presentation,” explains Armstrong.
The dancers have to repeat the same steps a thousand times, as well as face, every day, the mirror that marks the best of their talent.
These artists have learned a lesson in self-love and say that the day they discovered their talent and passion for what they do was enough to confront stereotypes.
Now they say, living their dream: “Dancing here makes me love myself more”, they comment in unison.
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