This study explores what strategies the heels dancers use to challenge the social norms about the female body and how the viewers react to the strategies along with the heels dancers’ responses. Employing Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model, this study analyzes the heels dancers’ effort to subvert the norms surrounding how they perform their bodies and the contested reactions of the audience, in accordance with Michel Foucault’s concept of counter-conduct, Judith Butler’s theory about gender performativity, and Luna Dolezal’s idea of body shame. The data that is analyzed in this study are heels dance video posts and direct comments from the dancers’ Instagram accounts, which are @jessynirmalaa, @heelsnation.id, and @curvescollective.id, from August 2021 to July 2024. The findings reveal that the heels dancers perform in brazen costumes, dance out sensual movements, and act out deviant narrations to challenge the norms, which are supported, partly accepted, and opposed by the audience. This contestation between the dancers’ effort and the viewers’ reactions suggest that the dancers’ bodies become an arena of struggles, as its dominant meanings are continuously challenged and renewed.