Danza Voluminosa #744, 2005, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #772, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #620, 2005, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #553, 2006, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #529, 2005, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #791, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #615, 2005, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #785, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #617, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #934, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #932, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #655, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #422, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #726, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa #931, 2007, 35 X 24"
Danza Voluminosa CD cover by J. Hayden
Danza Voluminosa promo by J. Hayden
Voluminosa Photographs: 2004 - 2006
Danza Voluminosa, Havana, Cuba was formed on May 5, 1996 by professor and choreographer Juan Miguel Mas. His goal was to use the hefty volume of its dancers with an aesthetic purpose while giving heavyset people the possibility to express and develop their self-esteem. With perseverance, technique and talent, Danza Voluminosa has redefined the beauty of dance in Cuba.
“. . . their dance becomes frenetic; the sheer weight of the dancers thudding across the stage conveys an excitement akin to a stampede, something out of control and wild, yet made of human flesh and blood. It can be a riveting sight.”
James C. McKinley Jr. (New York Times, July 30, 2007)
Voluminosa Photographs are inverted color nudes of members of the fat bodied Cuban dance troupe, Danza Voluminosa.
The photographs were initially taken for a video projection I made for their theater piece , Una Muerte Dulce in 2004 (the project continued in 2006). The intention of the images was to make fat bodies aesthetically beautiful offering an alternative narrative to the death of the main character who suffered rejection by her mother for her fat body. In the novel, she created herself into a grotesque eating only sweets and successfully ate herself to death. Juan Miguel Mas, Director of Danza Voluminosa wanted to imagine a different ending that gave hope to this character rather than despair. That is how I came to make the colorful abstractions of the nudes. The normal skin tones pushed the possibility of the read towards the grotesque by overemphasizing scale, hair follicles etc. By using the inverse of color, moving it to blues, greens, purple, the photographs became otherworldly, possibly celestial bodies.
Una Muerte Dulce (A Sweet Death) premiered at Teatro Nacional July 4, 2004 in Havana. In December 2005 Hayden received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Arts Award for these photographs.
Each print is 35 x 24", pigmented ink on cotton rag paper, signed on verso, edition of 6, series of 10 images.