Erica Feriozzi and Brion McCarthy

Members of the Full Circle Dance Company dare to go B.A.R.E.

All 15 members of the Full Circle Dance Company have enviable bodies. They vary in the details—height, proportion, age, skin tone. Some are more flexible, others more muscular. But all are paragons of the physical form, capable of feats that make the rest of us seem lead-footed. It’s hard to imagine a group of people less likely to suffer from insecurities about appearance. Yet the company (which is, barring one member, entirely female) recently discovered that when it comes to body image, they are all too human.

Their anxieties came to light in the process of creating a project titled B.A.R.E.: Bodies, Attitudes, Reflections, EXPOSED, a collection of seven original choreographed pieces that will debut this week at the Baltimore Museum of Art. As is Full Circle’s habit, the company has been preparing for this performance for a year, and it revolves around just one theme: body image. (Past themes include race, religion, water, the unconscious, and motherhood.) Once a topic is chosen, the creative process begins. The choreographers conduct research—one looked at advertising in this case—and often hold public forums inviting the community to contribute to the conversation around a given theme. But the free-form, often emotional discussions the dancers have with one another are central to the projects.

“There have always been tears—it creates better work. ” says Donna Jacobs, Full Circle’s artistic director. “It creates better work. We had this conversation and several of them said, ‘I feel fat with all of you because you’re so beautiful.’ . . . For us, there’s some secrecy about it. It’s almost as if you’re an ingrate.”

Dancers who happen to be taking a break nearby, in the Morton Street Dance Center in Hampden’s Meadow Mill building, nod in recognition. “My friends are actually annoyed we’re doing this,” says Hope Byers, who choreographed a piece for the show. “They think we couldn’t possibly have body image problems.”

The intent of the project, the choreographers say, is to illuminate universals, not insecurities that are specific to dancers. “We really strived to make this overall statement that we’re in this boat together,” says Allison Powell, another of the choreographers. “It’s all perspective.” She was inspired by PostSecret, the national community art project. Participants mail in their secrets on a postcard, anonymously, and, the hope is, find some solace as a result. In preparation for her piece, Powell created a “secret box” and solicited secrets about body image from the public, but her fellow dancers provided many of the responses. They make for a disheartening read.

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