Pole Position

For ten pounds an hour you can learn how to pole dance – not in High Heels and underwear, but in sneakers and sport clothes. 24-year-old Melanie S. from Germany tried this alternative style of dance.

Melanie came to Newcastle to study business, to improve her English, to make new friends and to try something different: pole dancing. For four weeks Melanie took lessons in this sexy dance style that more and more women in the United States, the United Kingdom and Western Europe are going crazy over.

Melanie’s dancing instructor Ellouise Hempstead, who is running her own dance troupe in Newcastle, noticed that for the past four years pole dancing has been a growing trend in the UK. “It is maybe more popular now in the way that the taboos that have been associated with it have subsided because of the all the celebrities that have gotten into it,” Ellouise said. “Now it is seen more as a fitness thing, which it has been since I started teaching it 6 years ago, but people always thought those kind of negative things whereas now [they think] ‘So-and-so does pole dancing, so I would like to try it too’.”

A sport for everyone?

According to Ellouise, every woman could learn how to pole dance, no matter how old, how tall, how trained or how slim she is. Usually her students are women between 20 and 30 years old, but her oldest student was 80 years old. “I have also taught guys sometimes,” Ellouise said. “They are pretty good in general, because they have the strength that is necessary, but women make it look better.”

Melanie started dancing about ten years ago. She tried historical dances, hip hop and music video dancing, and she is used to dance in front of an audience, hence she has good coordination and a lot of self-confidence, which was necessary to try something new and extraordinary. “Of course you need self-confidence,” Melanie said. “If you try something and it doesn’t work out, you make a fool of yourself in front of the others. But isn’t it like that everywhere in life?”

The pole dancing students have to practice a lot to look as elegant and graceful on the pole as their instructor Ellouise. “You need a lot of pressure to slide slowly down the pole, strength for the figures and coordination to entwine one leg around the pole and to straighten the other leg in the air,” Melanie said.

“Wonderwoman”

There are three of them in one course, because there is only one pole in the middle of the room and the women have to rotate. A lesson consists of a warm-up, a repetition of old and the learning of new figures with interesting names like the “Carousel” or “Wonderwoman”, a cool-down and stretching – exactly like any other dance lesson.

Some of the moves look quite difficult and the students require several tries to get them right. They sometimes crash down on their knees and every once in a while Ellouise has to remind them that the pole is their friend.

After the lesson they are sweaty, their muscles are aching and they are exhausted – that’s why Melanie says that pole dancing is definitely a sport and not just a sexy cavorting around the pole. She compares it with apparatus gymnastics and her instructor Ellouise says that most of her students see pole dancing from a fitness point of view rather than an erotic one.

“One reason why Pole Dancing is so popular at the moment is that a lot of women want to do something where they don’t feel like exercising, so they prefer dancing to go to the gym,” Ellouise said. “In the first instance they come here to have fun and make friends,” she added.

Pole Dancing, Go-Go Dancing & Stripping

For Melanie, Pole Dancing is generally a hobby, but she could imagine doing it professionally: “I love all kinds of dancing and on one hand I could imagine dancing on a pole in a club like a Go-Go dancer, but on the other hand I think I am too small and not lithe and lanky enough. Also, I don’t want to wear 20-centimeter High Heels, because then I can’t dance the way I want to. However, I love to dance, I know how to use my body to attract attention and it works -  last week a guy in a club came up to me and asked: ‘Are you a professional stripper?’ and I answered: ‘No, I am a student, but thanks anyway’.”

Melanie sees the guy’s comment as a compliment to her dancing skills rather than as an affront, because she says that she would never take her clothes off. “I feel good when I dance, but stripping has little to do with dancing. Strippers are predominantly there to turn on men, whereas Go-Go dancers try to animate and motivate the people in a club to dance and celebrate,” Melanie said. “Thus I could imagine dancing as a Go-Go girl but I would never strip.”

“Miss Pole Dance”

Melanie is also interested in Pole Dancing Competitions. According to the association “Miss Pole Dance” there have been 15 national Pole Dance events all over Britain in the last five years and every year there are “Miss Pole Dance UK Championships”, where the best pole dancers of the country compete against each other. These competitions are more about athleticism and artistry than about sex appeal, therefore nudity and stripping are strictly forbidden.

“If I get the chance to practice more often, to take an advanced course or private lessons in Pole Dancing and if I know a good routine by heart, I could imagine entering a pole dance competition,” Melanie said. To practice her pole dancing skills she intends to buy a pole for her home: “I think about purchasing my own pole to meet with friends for pole dance jam sessions and maybe a future boyfriend would profit from my own pole too…”

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