Poling For Charity: The Flying Vs Dance to Help End Violence Against Women

So I don’t know how you spent your Saturday night, but I’m going to tell you how I spent mine, because it was positively spectacular.  First, I went to see The Vagina Monologues.  I know, it came out in the 90’s and where have I BEEN?  But for those of you who have never seen it, it’s worth going. The Vagina Monologues is made up of a varying number of monologues read by a varying number of women.  Every monologue somehow relates to the vagina, be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the variety of names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the body. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality (courtesy of Wikipedia).  The play does a nice job of making you feel good about your vagina, if you have one.  I do, however wish it included the more positive aspects of heterosexual relationships.   While I understand that one of the goals of the play is to raise awareness about violence against women, there were parts of the play that felt like flat-out man bashing, which I don’t particularly agree with. 

The Vagina Monologues is the cornerstone of the V-Day movement, whose participants stage benefit performances of the show and/or host other related events in their communities. Such events take place worldwide each year between February 1 and April 30. The performances generally benefit rape crisis centers and similar resource centers for women.  This year in Santa Monica, V-Day benefitted Peace Over Violence, an LA based charity that helps women who have been physically and sexually assaulted.  A portion of the proceeds also went to women and girls in Haiti who are launching a campaign to end violence in their country with the help of sponsors and activists.

Following the play, there was a lovely after party with food, drinks and…pole dancing! A group of women known as The Flying Vs performed on two freestanding poles smack dab in the middle of the after party.  The Flying Vs are made up of four women: Tracy Mueller, Christina Grance, Rie Katagiri and Katy Kamen.  All four women have an S Factor background, and two of the four teach pole dancing at S Factor.  Rie teaches at Movement Studio LA and Katy offers private lessons in Malibu.  Their first performance was a celebration of the transition from girl to woman.  The dancers started off in tutus and tank tops and as the song progressed, they shed their layers of girlish clothing to reveal womanly curves and lingerie.  The second performance was an erotic dance to Moulin Rouge’s “Roxanne”.  The message was: I’m unapologetically sexy.  Now watch me and worship.  In both performances, the dancers moved slowly, deliberately and extremely sensually.   While there were some beautiful pole tricks, the focus was just as much on the floor as it was on the pole.  The dancers were in almost constant eye contact with one another, feeding off one another’s energy, which heightened the eroticism of the performance. 

I think the presence of pole dancing, especially an incredibly sensual form of pole dancing at this particular charity event, is significant for three reasons.  First, it shows the spirit of the pole dance community in a positive light.  It is possible to be sensual and celebrate the beauty of the female body without denigrating or objectifying it.  Second, it reinforces the idea that ending violence against women (which is the driving force behind all the V Day celebrations) does not mean erasing or hiding or restricting their sexuality.  On the contrary.   The end of violence against women, in a certain way, means that women can fully own and express their sexuality and its power without fear of attack, judgment or any other negative repercussions.  And this is precisely what happened on Saturday night.  Finally, pole dancing for a charitable cause shows that women can choose to dance, they can dance for reasons that are positive, and that the pole dance community is devoted to helping those in need.  In other words, we have heart.  And if you have any doubt about that, then check out Anjel Dust’s latest pole fundraiser for Japan on April 16^th and Emilee Wilson’s fundraiser, also for Japan, at The Good Hurt on April 4^th.  We love to dance, but we love it even more if it’s for a good cause!

At the end of their last performance, The Flying V’s walked into their audience, who had formed a circle around them, and pulled women out onto the floor to dance with them.  It was a symbolic move, one that communicated that the dance was for all women.  I cannot begin to express to you the joy of looking around at a sea of women, all moving sensually on the floor, on the poles, all celebrating their bodies and their sexuality, all blissfully uninhibited and feeling safe and celebrated.  It was…awesome.  And it made me want to be a Flying V!

For more information on The Flying V’s go to: www.theflyingvs.com

For more information on V Day go to: www.vday.org

To get on board with Peace Over Violence check out: www.peaceoverviolence.org

The Why Factor

I recently attended the most splendid play.  I love plays.  And of course, I love pole dancing.  So a play that combines the two is just, well, delicious.  The play was called The Why Factor: Proportion Distortion.  The Why Factor is an all-female writing ensemble started by Christina Howard in 2006.  Over the past few years, these women have created four original productions each focusing on a different theme in women’s lives.  This particular production focused on exploring female body image and sexuality.  The story centers around nine women who attend a pole dance class in an attempt to get in touch with their sexuality.  Through the work they do in class, the women are forced to confront issues of self-acceptance, the ways in which they keep themselves chained to their past and the realization that they each have tremendous untapped power.

 

The play was sponsored by S Factor, an all-female pole dancing studio based in Los Angeles.  The structure of the classes and the dance movements were based on the S Factor experience.  S Factor emphasizes the emotional connection between erotic dance and the female sexual psyche.  Many students who have attended S Factor classes (including Christina Howard) call the experience “transformative”.

The instructor in the dance class (played by real-life S Factor Instructor Janelle Taylor) is cast simultaneously as Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, dance, volcanoes and destruction.  Pele represents the passionate and creative force that transforms and rebuilds our lives.  She has the power to clear and purify all that is not needed.  As the instructor, Taylor beckons the women to bring forth that which lays dormant at the very core of their being.  She believes that every woman has a fire that burns deep within and that calling out this fire has tremendous healing potential.

 

This Pele archetype is particularly important for the modern day women   As a goddess who is associated with destruction, Pele is often misunderstood and even misjudged.  We often like to connect the Divine feminine with cozy, comfy things such as nurturing, mothering, unconditional love, and non-judgmental support.  However when it comes the darker, wild side of the feminine, i.e. the chaotic, the unpredictable and the destructive, we shy away and even disown these parts of ourselves.  Pele reminds us that fiery eruptions and emotional upheaval are almost always followed by new life and change.  She reminds us that this wild side of the feminine is where a part of our power resides, and to disown it or deny it is to deny a core aspect of the feminine nature. 

 

There is a particularly poignant moment towards the end of the play when a student, unable to handle where the class is asking her to go and the implications it has on her marriage, chooses to leave.  Pele/The eacher leaves the classroom to go after her and returns unsuccessful only to face a classroom full of doubting women.  The students challenge the teacher, telling her the work is easy for her and questioning the validity of the journey she has taken them on.  “OOOOHHHHHH!”  bellows Pele.  Her fiery explosion stuns her students into silence.  She rages on, telling them about her own journey and it’s darkest moments, explaining to them that this sexual openness has never come easily for her, that she struggled for years with her demons and that it had, in fact, required a part of her to die and then rise from the ashes left behind.

 

In this scene Pele is describing a struggle that many women face with when confronted with their sexuality.  It is easy to think that a woman who can lead you into a deeper relationship with your sexual self has it all figured out or that somehow, her road was easier than yours.  It was not.  It is easy to think that the girl on the mat next to you has it all together.  She does not.  The wisdom that we see in our teachers comes from a willingness to dive into the darkest parts of ourselves and to know and love those places intimately.  The demons inside may change or go away but that is not the goal.  And when we find ourselves back in what seems to be the same place, for what feels like the millionth time, it is wise to take the lesson, be utterly kind to one’s self but also to notice what is different this time.  In my experience, we rarely visit the same places twice.  Rather, we circle around in an upward spiral, coming to what seems like the same place from a different perspective.

 

At the end of the play Pele says she believes that within every woman there is a fire that burns hotter than the earth’s core.  But that it is often buried, making it burn even hotter.  The journey then is to uncover this fire, this wildness, and to let it out so that it might purify and energize us.  The journey is to let others feel and see this fire, to make them understand that it is as inherent to a woman’s nature as nurturing might be.  The journey is to let the ashes of that fire be the fertile ground for new beginnings.