Fat Dance | Dança Gorda is funded by the British Council’s International Collaboration Grants, designed to support UK and overseas organisations to collaborate on international arts projects. FABRIC is a lead partner, alongside Corpo Rastreado (BR).

The project was instigated by the artists, and Fabric was thrilled to be invited into that process.

Jussara Belchior (BR) is a fat ballerina who also works as a choreographer, a collaborator in other artists’ projects, and a researcher of practices and writings in contemporary dance. Jussara's work deals with fat people, fatness and non-normative bodies, with a particular interest in the poetics and politics of movement and positioning yourself through dance. She has a PhD in Theatre, researching fat activism, and co-founded Escrita Performativa (2019 - ), a collective interested in academic artistic writing. She has worked in partnership with Anderson do Carmo, Coletivo CIDA, Selvática Ações Artísticas, Simone Fortes, Daniela Alves, Marcos Klann, and others. She was part of MANADA (2018 - 2022), a collective of fat artists, and was a member of Grupo Cena 11 Cia de Dança (2007 – 2017).

Magdalena Hutter (DE) is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and photographer. A graduate of the HFF Munich, she has been making films since 2007 and teaching filmmaking since 2012. In her documentary film work, her focus is on projects about art and artists, as well as on themes of belonging. In her teaching, she has worked with groups ranging from teenagers to older adults, with an emphasis on documentary filmmaking as empowerment for queer and refugee youth.

In addition to her work as a filmmaker, Magdalena is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University in Montreal/Tioh'tà:ke. In her research, Magdalena uses documentary film, conversations/oral histories, and movement research, and works with fat performers to highlight the knowledge that their respective practices can offer, as well as the knowledge that emerges when these practices are brought into conversation with her own work in film.

Gillie Kleiman (UK) creates experimental dance and performance work. For the past 17 years, she has been making shows, texts, events, and encounters at venues ranging from theatres and dance festivals to art galleries and community spaces. Her work for audiences aims to make contemporary dance more accessible, give people tools to engage with art confidently, and find new ways to share complex ideas, often by involving non-professionals in the performances themselves.

Certain themes appear throughout Gillie's work: friendship, the role and value of non-professional performers, the relationship between work and play, singing and songs, and carefully structured improvisation. She's fascinated by what makes dance special—both for dancers and audiences—and often brings out the playfulness and humor in these experiences.

For the past five years, Gillie has focused particularly on dance and fatness. This appears in her writing (including academic research), community projects (such as a long-term collaboration with four non-professional fat dancers in Newcastle), initiatives within the arts sector, and her choreography.

Visit Magdalena Hutter

Visit Gillie Kleiman

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Music by Tom Harris listeningspace.xyz/

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com

Fabric is an Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation.

Alan Lyddiard is on a mission to create, with others, extraordinary performances and build long-lasting relationships with older people, locally, nationally, and internationally.

He retired in 2014 at the age of 65 and went to live in Spain. He was bored after two weeks and decided to set up The Performance Ensemble, a company of older artists, with founding chair, Mandy Stewart. He settled in Leeds and started working at Leeds Playhouse with their older person project, Heydays.
Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength. They are now the first permanent ensemble of older artists regularly funded by Arts Council England.

Alan will be working with people from Nottingham on nottdance as Place, an afternoon of nottdance past, present and future, woven together through exhibition, live performance and conversation.

2025festival.nottdance.com/event/nottdance-as-place/

For more information on their work, visit theperformanceensemble.com

Lucy Suggate is a dance artist based in Yorkshire, working in performance, making, education, dramaturgy, and mentoring. Her work highlights how movement – dance – choreography can respond to the ongoing age of crisis and prolonged uncertainty by focusing on embodied practices and the physical and perceptual shifts that occur when engaged in long-term moving and thinking.

Visit lucysuggate.com

Visit nottdance Festival

Visit Fabric Dance

Music by Tom Harris listeningspace.xyz/

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com

Fabric is an Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation.

Cool Company is a dance improvisation ensemble for people aged 55 and over, based in Nottingham Contemporary. Referencing current exhibitions, they explore and develop relationships between visual arts and movement. Key to these workshops is the integration of social and creative elements, which empower the work of the group. Workshops are facilitated by Deane McQueen, professional choreographer, director and Backlit Gallery Studio artist.

Lucy Suggate is working with Cool Company during nottdance 2025 to present Tender Stones. For more information and tickets, visit the festival website.

Visit Cool Company Dance and Movement Workshops at Nottingham Contemporary

The Houdini club (Deane McQueen)

the houdini club has a membership of one, created and donated by french surrealist Allain Prillard who recognised them in a past life. the houdini club is a neon sign active when lit. the houdini club thinks, collaborates, makes, shares, exits, panics, disappears and returns. Escapes completed, yet to be achieved. Recorded details in misplaced notebooks never found. No archive. No social media. Present. Live. the houdini club is about connections and relationships, severing, rupturing and sometime continuity. The artist does not wish be seen, not recognised. Absent.

Lucy Suggate is a dance artist based in Yorkshire, working in performance, making, education, dramaturgy, and mentoring. Her work highlights how movement – dance – choreography can respond to the ongoing age of crisis and prolonged uncertainty by focusing on embodied practices and the physical and perceptual shifts that occur when engaged in long-term moving and thinking.

Visit lucysuggate.com

Visit nottdance Festival

Visit Fabric Dance

Music by Tom Harris listeningspace.xyz/

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com

Fabric is an Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation.

Welcome to dance moves people, a podcast from Fabric.

Fabric is a strategic dance development organisation based in the Midlands, UK, with sites in the cities of Birmingham and Nottingham.

In these conversations, we invite artists, partners, collaborators, and friends to share their stories about Fabric, the sector, and what dance choreography and art mean to them, ultimately revealing the social value of dance.

Please like and subscribe on your usual podcast platform.

Visit nottdance Festival

Visit Fabric Dance

Music by Tom Harris listeningspace.xyz

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com

Fabric is an Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation.

This is the second episode in a series of one-hour ‘In Conversation with’ zoom sessions, inviting Critical Mass leads and organisers to share the story of their role in the project, how the experience has influenced/changed their practice and 3 key learning points they want to share with dance professionals interested in working inclusively.

This episode includes Rachel Liggitt who was the Inclusion Champion on Critical Mass 2022.

Learn more about the Dance Leaders Group here
Learn more about Critical Mass here

This the first episode in a series of one-hour ‘In Conversation with’ zoom sessions, inviting Critical Mass leads and organisers to share the story of their role in the project, how the experience has influenced/changed their practice and 3 key learning points they want to share with dance professionals interested in working inclusively.

This episode includes Zoie Golding MBE who was the Lead Artist on Critical Mass 2022.

Learn more about the Dance Leaders Group here
Learn more about Critical Mass here

In Episode 4 Shane speaks with Paul Anthony Morris about the importance of dance in his work and it’s relevance and his own unique physical training approach and its effect on actors.

This is part of Shane's curated Dance Insights Online programme, Shane Shambhu brings a series of short conversations expanding our understanding of dance, theatre and culture.

In Episode 3 Shane speaks with Brazilian-born Theatre Director, Ramiro Silveira about his physical-theatre practises, the relevance of physicality in drama and plays and Brazil’s place on the global stage.

This is part of Shane's curated Dance Insights Online programme, Shane Shambhu brings a series of short conversations expanding our understanding of dance, theatre and culture.