The politics of the pole

MANILA, Philippines - With fitness and health becoming more and more important to people today, many have sought interesting and fun alternative workouts to get them started on their fitness regimen. One such recent trend in fitness alternatives is pole dancing.

“I wouldn’t want it to just become a trend,” says pole dancer Eisa Jocson, associate director of Pole Academy Philippines. “I want it to have its own life all together. It’s a discipline.” Training for three years now, Eisa has taken pole dancing beyond the realm of fitness, into a discourse that explores the art and politics of pole.

Introduced to pole dancing in 2008, Eisa says she was very defensive at first to people who would question the legitimacy – and even the decency – of pole dancing. “But if you just talk about it, they won’t understand,” she says. “If they see you perform, they’ll see the difference.”

Eisa adds, “All pioneers of pole dance experience that in their community.” Thanks to the likes of her mentor Ed Aniel, who founded Pole Academy Philippines, the stigma towards pole dancing is not as strong. But Eisa never let criticism hold her back as she continued to test the limits of pole dancing in the country.

She also notes that with all the publicity pole dancing as an alternative exercise is getting, it is not as difficult to explain anymore. There is less stigma today attached to pole dancing. Still, she says, “There are just people who are closed minded.” She, however, hopes that pole dancing will flourish, adding that other dance forms like flamenco had also been initially considered indecent and even banned at some point in history, before evolving into the forms that we know today.

As a Visual Arts major with a minor in Dance at the Philippine High School for the Arts and later a Visual Communications major at the University of the Philippines, Eisa strives to bring her worlds of art and dance together, wherein she explores the politics of the pole. “I can bring this discipline to the art world by incorporating it into my art practice,” she says, adding that the stigma against pole dancing made her really interested in bringing it into the art discourse.

“Pole dance is not just grinding. There is a whole vocabulary to it... it tests our vertical limits,” she says.

Eisa’s project, Stainless Borders: The Deconstruction of Architectures of Control, among other projects and collaborations, explores this vocabulary. Eisa describes Stainless Borders as “an interventionist project that uses guerilla street pole dancing in combination with graffiti tagging to question and map the limits and possibilities of the body in the urban landscape.” She adds, “I am very much interested in the politics of pole dancing... I use pole dancing as a tool to question the possibilities of women’s bodies in public space.”

Eisa has gone to different countries to continue this discourse, both in performances as well as in pole competitions.

Pole dance is a combination of grace and strength... It’s more acrobatic than you think,” says Eisa, who won the pole art award and the best spin at the First Philippine Pole Dance Competition last year. She has also been teaching pole dancing to a wide range of interested students, from beginners to advanced enthusiasts.

“It’s not for everyone, but everyone can do it,” says Eisa, adding that in the pole dancing classes that she teaches at Arts in the City, Taguig, she has students from 18 to 55 years of age, from lawyers to housewives, of all shapes and sizes.

“You learn at your own pace,” she assures. Safety is always a priority when teaching pole dancing, especially to beginners.

“We make sure they build up strength and make a strong foundation for students... Week after week, their bodies definitely get stronger,” she says, adding that even she gets fresh bruises when she tries new moves in developing her more advanced routines.

Eisa says that though many of the pole dance students become interested in the class for fitness – “A workout that’s not a workout” – many leave the class with a new-found appreciation for their bodies. There are many benefits of getting into pole dancing, Eisa says. “You become more confident,” she says. “You feel good with your body,” she adds – not only physically but emotionally and psychologically as well.

“There’s something with pole dancing and building a community of women,” Eisa muses, telling of how her students develop strong bonds and lasting relationships as they help each other out and witness each other lose their inhibitions.

Ultimately, pole dancing is about self-realization. “You take control of your body,” says Eisa. “It’s a life changing thing.” And when this happens, even the sky is no longer a limit.

For information on pole dancing classes at Arts in the City, contact Pole Academy Philippines at 0916-4396352 or visit them on facebook.