PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THE REST OF US
PHOTO CREDIT: KINAWILLIAMS.COM
THE INSPIRATION
"Any time there is a fat person on stage as anything besides the butt of a joke, it's political. Add physical movement, then dance, then sexuality and you have a revolutionary act."
- Heather MacAllister
Once upon a time, there was a woman in our community who changed the world in profound and personal ways. She made everyone who knew her feel like they were made of pure gold. Her name was Heather MacAllister.
While I did not know Heather, the important activist work that she did still touches my life and my community. She was the founder and director of Big Burlesque - The Original Fat-Bottom Revue, the worlds first all-fat burlesque troupe. She was a social justice activist on behalf of marginalized communities for over 20 years.
Everyone that came into contact with her has a story about how she changed their life and made them feel good about themselves. My friend Victoria relayed a story that seems to encapsulate an experience common among people who encountered Heather...
"So I'm at this big party, and I don't know anyone and I am shy and in a corner drinking and trying to be invisible.
"I'll never forget it: Heather walks by me, turns around, come right up to me, takes my face in her hands and says, 'Pretty girl, with an ass like that why aren't you dancing?' She grabbed my hand and pulled me on the floor and it was the first time I figured out that femmes could be kind to each other. I cry a little just thinking about it, like 6 years later.
"So yeah, now that I'm little less socially isolated I do my best to try to do the same. Except that I'm far less smooth."
The naming of my new business is inspired by Heather and the wonderful social justice work that she did. It is my small contribution to continuing her legacy, and her message of acceptance for everyone in all of our beautiful diversity. I can only hope that she is out there somewhere watching all of us, dancing and laughing, and enjoying the ways that we revel in our bodies. I hope that I can do her mission justice.
HEATHER MACALLISTER BIOGRAPHY
Heather MacAllister was born in Michigan on the 25th of February 1968 and grew up in Dearborn and Ann Arbor, Michigan. She also lived in Tucson, Arizona; San Francisco, California; and Portland, Oregon.
Heather earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology and African American studies from Eastern Michigan University in 1998. From 2000 to 2002, she worked as a field organizer for the Triangle Foundation, a gay rights group in Michigan. Heather MacAllister founded the Venus Group, a social and support network for large women. She also founded Big Burlesque - The Original Fat-Bottom Revue, a performance group of fat artist/activists. On stage she was known as Reva Lucian (a play on the word "revolution"). She conducted size acceptance workshops and/or performances nationwide, including the True Spirit Conference in Washington, D.C., the National Women's Music Festival (IN), the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, Eastern Michigan University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, the Abundia Retreat (IL), the NOLOSE Conference (NJ), Fat Girl Speaks (OR), and Burning Man (NV). She worked to protect Muslim and Arab-American civil rights after 9-11 and served on the board of Al-Fatiha (the nation's only national organization for sexual minority Muslims) and on the board of Transgender Michigan (dedicated to protect transgender individuals from discrimination, violence, harassment, and inequality).
Heather MacAllister died on February 13, 2007, at age 38 as a result of an assisted suicide. Her death came after a 3-year battle with terminal ovarian cancer.
Her final public appearance was in the art photography book The Full Body Project by photographer and actor Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame). The book is a compilation of photographs including those taken of MacAllister and her troupe for a 2005 New York City art photography show called "Maximum Beauty" which opened at the Bonni Benrubi gallery on 57th street in New York City. The book was released in 2007 and dedicated to Heather MacAllister.
During a lifetime of art and activism she took part in fighting sexism, sizeism, racism and apartheid as she helped make "fat" sexy and cool.