In October I was a guest speaker and performer at Exotic Hell, Elvira Langdon’s brand-new pole dance competition which promised to be the first openly transfeminist pole competition in Italy, platforming and centring sex workers and the erotic. In case you missed it, here’s what went down at Exotic Hell.
Exotic Hell: the competition
The first edition of Exotic Hell was created in response to several instances of discrimination and opaque judging in the Italian pole dance industry, where some of the most established dancers and competition organisers actively penalise explicit performances, try their hardest to distance themselves from strippers, and sometimes openly favour or penalise specific competitors.
Elvira Langdon, an 18-year-old Italian trans sex worker and pole dancer, competition winner, podcast host and activist has often been the target of this discrimination. Her love of explicit performances celebrating pole dance’s sex working origins has resulted in many online hate campaigns and discrimination at competitions. She decided to create a comp where performances of this kind could take centre stage, and where they could be complemented by discussions surrounding the history of pole and the use of the word “exotic,” which we don’t use anymore in the English-speaking world but that Italy is struggling to let go of. You can read more about why “exotic” is being phased out here.
Because of its approach, Exotic Hell was revolutionary. Several non-conforming bodies, such as trans and non-binary pole dancers, took to the stage and were celebrated as they were. A pregnant woman performed an incredibly sultry and challenging routine. Strippers competed in Italy’s first Stripper Style category through perfectly executed, mezmerising freestyles. Metal and rock music took centre stage and became erotic expression.
Marking schemes largely avoided any feedback on lines and pointed toes. UK icon Toxic Cherry brought a deliciously slutty Jigsaw-inspired routine to the show, while Chlotichilda created a raw performance based on a very explicit sex act.
Performers from all over the world channelled dark sensuality, kink, or even just their origins, with a sexy Japanese inspired, Katana chopping performance by a stunning contestant. The night ended with a deliciously filthy, shocking performance by Elvira Langdon, who lap danced a man dressed in kink gear in front of her mum! For anyone who may have any doubts: Elvira’s mum is a badass and she loved it – her support of her daughter is beyond anything I’ve seen in Italy, and even elsewhere.
In short, Exotic Hell embodied the change it wanted to be in terms of performances, styles and vibes. It did so on the gorgeous stage of Alessandria’s Teatro Alessandrino, with striking lighting, several changerooms and warming up spaces, and some of the best photography I’ve ever had at a comp (by Luca Maggio, aka @elleemme78). It was a night to remember, and an example of the space all pole competition organisers should be creating at their events.
Of course all comps – and particularly first editions – have teething problems, and Exotic Hell was no different. The line-up was huge – about 90 performances, since the amateur “Baby Bat” category had nearly 40 people in it. As a result of the sheer number of entrants and some battery issues the photographer had, I ended up performing almost two hours later than planned and the categories after the last guest show ran very late. Counting scores also took a while, so the winners were announced much later than planned – at 2am instead of midnight. There have also been several issues with the videos which, for reasons that are not related to the organisers and that the videographer struggled to explain to me and other performers, ended up not being there or just partially there for most people (me included).
I and others have shared feedback with the organisers so that next year’s Exotic Hell can be an even more ground-breaking event. Overall however, it was a breath of fresh air, a positive and supportive environment and a much-needed platform for discussion. The backstage vibes were immaculate, and everyone was supportive, friendly, approachable and welcoming, showing that making space for different styles of expression, different bodies and different identities really pays off for the show and performers’ experiences alike. This translated into post-competitions sleep-overs, too, where I entertained Yoko Polechair by packing my suitcase half-naked while we all shared stories about different cultures’ approaches to life.
Parola di Poler Live at Exotic Hell: The panel
Langdon and Chlotichilda planned a live version of their Parola di Poler (A Poler’s Word) podcast for Exotic Hell, and invited me to speak as a guest. Together with the team from Wovo, an Italian sex education, sex toy and sex party company, we debunked myths about pole dance’s history, discussed the main issues around shadowbanning and censorship of sex, gave the audience advice about managing their social media profiles, and had some crucial political discussions about our field.
We are living through one of the biggest political, social, international and violent crises of our time: the genocide happening in Palestine. We can’t sit on an event claiming to be political and talk about censorship without at least raising that the same censorship that first targeted sexual content, our own expression and livelihoods is now being used to limit the type of information coming from Gaza, where journalists from the outside world can’t access the reality of what’s happening as widespread censorship is applied by platforms on content surrounding Palestine. I’m so glad that Exotic Hell could hold space to talk about collective struggles.
As Langdon argued in their opening monologue, we as pole dancers are sex workers’ and strippers’ guests in an art they’ve created. An art an and a sport that comes from stripping is inherently political, and should act as such. Given that so much of the Italian pole dance industry attempts to distance itself from strippers and claims pole comes from Mallakhamb, it felt important to have this discussion in Italian. As Luanne Cruz, an audience member and Best Striptease winner who asked us a question, argued, having discussions in our own language is a political act too, fighting the hegemony of English.
Another necessary discussion allowed by Parola di Poler Live was the need to move on from the word “exotic,” which we are collectively dropping in the English-speaking world but that Italy struggles to let go of. I told stories of how this word was used to describe me in an othering, sexualised way in England too, and how it’s not an accurate, effective way to describe pole styles. Many still use it in Italy for fear of issues with marketing and selling classes named with sexier terms, but we all agreed that while fighting whorephobia in our country feels like a mammoth task due to the cultural influence of the Catholic Church amongst other things, we must collectively find better words because, as Audre Lorde would say, you can’t use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.
If you understand Italian, you can listen to Parola di Poler Live here – we recorded it for posterity 😛
I really hope this format will remain for next year – I would love to hear from Italian strippers about the reality of their job in our country, because while incredible English-speaking activists like Gemma Rose and all the stripper and sex worker collectives in the UK have taught us a great deal of the day-to-day reality of stripping, we’re yet to hear about the Italian context.
Exotic Hell: My performance
For Exotic Hell, guests and judges were asked to dress in black and dance to rock music. I chose iconic 80s track Kickstart My Heart for my choreo, knowing full well it would have been a huge challenge: gaining a Motley Crue proof stamina after two months of mellow training in the Sardinian heat would have been no joke.
Luckily, throughout August I supplemented my training with swimming back home and the stamina part came out all right. Planning the reveals though was a nightmare: I took off heart-shaped glasses, a denim jacket, a bodysuit and clipped off my underwear, wearing a combo of vintage denim, Pole Junkie Rolling Vertigo Mesh bodysuit and Pleaser boots, Tats + Tissels shiny heart nipple pasties and a Clipher clip-off thong.
For WEEKS I thought I’d wear a leather jacket, but always struggled to take it off in run-throughs because it was too tight on my muscly pole dancer arms. Then removing the bodysuit proved hellish as I had to learn to get it off my Pleaser boots’ buckles.
The night before Exotic Hell, I was stoked about my rehearsal. It came out really well. On the night itself though, due to very little sleep, a crowded accommodation situation with little personal space, travel tiredness, delays and PMS-induced brain fog, I messed up a ballerina – a trick I do ALL THE TIME – after my glassed moved before they should (which never happened before), which I guess threw me. I hate how visible the mistake is, and I hate I won’t be able to use the full video. But I love everything else about this performance: I love how much more fluid I am becoming as a dancer, and I loved consolidating my style for this, adding and tweaking new transitions.
I wanted to bring something that was quintessentially me to this stage, and I think I did it: 80s rock, lots of tiny outfit removals, energy, drops and bootyshakes are the essence of my Powersleaze style. I *think* I want to perform this routine again, but for now I’m too triggered. My experience of comps, turns out, is always nerve-wracking, even as a guest and not a competitor. Events is where I feel more at home. I was going to enter Dance Filthy Italy, but now I’m too knackered to even think about it!
The backlash
Of course we can’t have nice things, so a wholesome, supportive and trail-blazing comp as Exotic Hell was followed by an online backlash which, inadvertently, proved its point.
The founder of Italian competition Exotic Moon proceeded to “critique” the event by insulting Elvira Langdon with homophobic and transphobic abuse, slut-shaming the pregnant woman who took part in Exotic Hell, making fun of Langdon’s mum (!) for being proud of her “slutty child”, zooming in on Langdon’s ass from a past thought-provoking performance where she wore a butt plug in protest against comp rules and even accusing us all of smoking weed backstage (I wish!).
As I wrote in a recent Instagram post about this (swipe), this competition organiser’s actions speak for themselves, and whoever engages with them will do so knowing they routinely post whorephobic, transphobic and homophobic online harassment. But I truly feel sorry for them, and for how small their world is: living in fear of our industry becoming better means they’ve built their “relevance” on slut-shaming and being in denial of our art’s powerful history. They’re so worried about policing the limits of the term “exotic” that they don’t realise we, as an industry, are moving on from it.
Next year
Regardless of the teething problems, I am in absolute awe of Elvira for organising a huge competition and engaging in extremely political acts at 18, while finishing high school with top marks, winning competitions, going through personal upheaval, facing harassment and discrimination, and being an activist in a homophobic and transphobic country such as ours. I’m so grateful to her for seeing me as a researcher activist and performer, and for opening up this much-needed space in Italy.
I’m also so grateful to her for creating such a positive environment and for allowing me to meet my idols Yoko Pole Chair, Toxic Cherry and Ella Bottom Rouge in real life, and of course for bringing my faves Marika Waldorf and Aryanna Pole Dancer to the judging panel and to the stage.
Congrats to all competitors, winners and performers – thank you for having made Exotic Hell so special. I’m sure next year’s comp will be even better! Keep an eye out for my future interview with Elvira, which will be LIT!
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