CHARITY HOLLOWAY: Being a plus sized dancer, I do believe that sometimes the body moves differently than
someone who is probably smaller.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: Your weight and your size does not have any kind of implications on your beauty.
It doesn’t have to determine what, how you feel about yourself. My name is Charity Holloway and I’m
the founder of 432 which is a plus-size dance group based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: I first started dancing when I was actually very young. It's always been a huge passion of
mine. As a child I was always one of the heavier kids. I always had a lot of hips, a lot of stomach and I knew very
early that I was not going to be that typical skinny girl.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: When I was in high school, I decided to join my high school, the cheerleading; they
didn’t actually have a uniform that fit me. So the school gave me two uniforms and I took those uniforms to a
seamstress and she sew them together and made me a outfit and that’s how I was able to cheer.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: It's so beautiful outside today, beautiful day in the neighbourhood.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: What made me so determined to dance was more so of the feeling I got from dancing.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: 432 currently consists of 17 big, beautiful, courageous, plus-sized dancers, 18 including
myself. *laughs
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: When you’re told that you are too fat to dance or too big to dance, it really affects your
mental state, and it affects your confidence, it affects your self-esteem, and those things affect what you do
with your life. Well like, that definitely happened to me.
NATALIE SYKES: So being a member of 432 has definitely helped my confidence. This is the first dancegroup that I’ve ever been able to be in, where all the girls are curvy, all the girls are confident, and we all get to.
do what we love which is dancing
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: Looking at the media, I didn’t see anybody that looked like me you know, dancing
professionally. I eventually came to a point where I accepted my body, where I started to love my curves.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: So I’m just waiting on some of the girls from my group to come up here because we are
going to meet up and walk around and maybe do a little bit of a dance.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: I’ve had plenty of moments where I felt judged and with the size comes these
implications that you know, big people can’t move or you know, big people don’t have energy, big people are lazy,
big people can’t be explosive.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: I do get those comments and that really was one of the main reasons why I started
432. Just the kind of dispelled those rumours that we are somehow less than because we’re plus size.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: Yeah, after I started my group I had some amazing opportunities to come to us.
We’ve been able to travel to Italy and be on television and perform. We are going to China in a few months.
I do feel like the industry is starting to see plus-sized dancers as an asset but we still have a long way to go
because it's not the norm.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: We’re always trying to push boundaries and we’re always trying to do the unexpected.
We’re always trying to do what people don’t expect. It is definitely still a dream of mine to be a professional
dancer. I will love to hopefully one day go on tour with an artist or may be dance in a music video.
CHARITY HOLLOWAY: I love dancing because it is a release. For a long time dancing was the only place that
I felt confident. It was the only place where I felt like I can be my total complete authentic self. It was the only
place where I felt freedom. Now you know, that has started to transcend into you know, everyday life.
But they’re all starting with me you know, hitting the stage, performing and dancing. So I love dance
because it allows me to be expressive, it allows me to just be me.