Big Moves

There was plenty of flesh, exposed and otherwise, jiggling at the Milky Way a week ago Wednesday — most notably, four fat-bottomed girls who sang and danced in front of Gunpowder Gelatine, an all-female quintet playing Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.” This on a night that would have been Freddie Mercury’s 61st birthday. It was part of an event called “Queen for a Day,” a celebration of the rock band, yes, but also, as promoter Marina Wolf Ahmad put it, of “body diversity and size acceptance.”

Ahmad helms Big Moves, a “mostly queer, all-fat, currently female” 12-member dance troupe she founded two years ago. At the Milky Way, Big Moves set the stage for Gunpowder Gelatine’s debut — the outfit was formed by bassist Allison Sigrist of the cover band 1977, a male-and-female band who also specialized in Queen tunes. The live music bracketed an evening of drag, burlesque, belly dancing, and bawdy humor anchored by MC Deidra Everett, who summed it up as “fat, fleshy, fabulous, fun, and sexy.”

“We call each other ‘Fatty,’ ” said dancer Natasha Nolan. “We’re trying to empower the word ‘fat’ — it’s like ‘queer’ and ‘dyke.’ ”

There was a more traditional sexy strip tease from two Babes in Boinkland, slender gals from an offshoot of the local sex magazine. Sugar Dish and Pixy Dust danced to “Under Pressure” as prim businesswomen who got nearly naked to engage in a faux lesbian tryst. BiB had previously performed on a show with Big Moves, and the two groups struck up a simpático relationship. The feeling, said Dish, “is anyone should be able to get up there and take their clothes off and feel hot.”

Becca d’Bus — a Divine-esque drag queen — straddled a tricycle as she cavorted to a German remix of “Bicycle.” Later, she stripped down — and wore a large, hairy self-made pubic wig — as she danced to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” When asked what the complicated song meant, she replied, “I’m a stupid drag queen: I don’t have a clue.”

After the show, Ahmad said that the dance world is all about thin. Her take? “The body is the dancer’s instrument.” Limiting dance to a body type “is like writing symphonies for flutes. . . . We all know in the outside world, fat is not considered positive, but this will arm you against the rest of the world. We need this haven.”