Category Pole Dance, Fitness and Wellbeing

Ramblings on pole dance and all types of exercise I do, together with my personal mindfucks on mental health.

Elvira Langdon interview

Elvira Langdon is one of the most accomplished pole dance performers I know. At only 19 years old at the time of writing, she has won 14 titles, created a taboo-defying pole competition, taught many classes and workshops, and campaigned…

Five years of Blackstage

Five years ago, Leila Davis (@cutiewhippingham) founded Blackstage, a non-profit events company centring and enhancing the creativity of pole dancers of colour, with a special focus on Queer, Trans, Disabled, low-income or sex working performers. The rest, as they say,…

Exotic Hell – year one

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…

Governing pole dance: why is it so difficult? 

Following recent safety concerns at competitions, mentions of a governing body for the pole dance industry have been floating around again. My name has been made a few times as someone who may be interested in taking part in it,…

Competing: why I’m taking a break

I’ve decided to take a break from competing in pole dance competitions, meaning that PDSM, which you may have read about here, will be my last comp for a while. In this blog post, I explain why I wasn’t enjoying…

Zeta Spyraki on pole dance and film-making

In the past year, I have been upping my pole dance video game by booking professional showreels with film-maker, pole dancer and university lecturer Zeta Spyraki. We love a versatile babe! Zeta has the power to make me look like…

Reflecting on the Blackstage Talks panel

After the Blackstage Talks: Breaking Moulds panel I was honoured to have chaired, I have been sitting on a lot of thoughts following the incredibly generative conversations we had with pioneers in our industry. As a result, this blog post…

Getting naked for PDSM

ICYMI, this month I competed in Gemma Rose‘s PDSM, aka Pole Dance Stripper Movement, an entirely stripper-run pole competition celebrating the origins of our industry. And I got fully naked for it. For the first time. So I thought the…

Skripped Down: back to the comp life

On November 3rd I competed in Skripped Down, my first professional international pole dance competition, where I also won the 2023 Philanthropist Award for my anti-censorship work. Skripped Down was an unforgettable night – read on to find out my…

Rachael Gisella Interview

Rachael Gisella is Jamaican born, London bred full-time pole instructor and performer now based in Lisbon. Known for all things choreography and low flow, Rachael has become an almost instant pole star: a world class performer who has pole danced…

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