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…
YAS Work is an advocacy, media and consulting company centring the needs, knowledge and expertise of strippers and sex workers. When I heard that the company was trying to change the way pole dance is represented in events and entertainment,…
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,…
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…
“Get you a girl who can do both – pole dance and academia” (and who gets, like, really anxious about it). “Doing both” was, for a while, my brand, something I lived and breathed, without too much thought. But as…
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,…
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…
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…
Questo mese ho fatto parte di PDSM, Pole Dance Stripper Movement, la gara di pole dance di Gemma Rose. PDSM è una gara creata da una spogliarellista per celebrare le origini della pole dance. Visto che avviene in uno strip…
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…
