Not too long ago, I noticed a lot of pole dancers that I know (directly or through online networks) were expressing frustration and difficulty in carving out a niche for their own personal style. It seems once you get to a certain point in your pole journey, you spend a bunch of time figuring out what fits you best, and what kind of dancer you really want to be-- and that can be a daunting and intimidating process. I asked Michelle Stanek, as well as Natasha Wang and Amber Richards, for their feedback in how this process worked for them. All three of them are clearly renowned pole dancers (and interviews with Amber and Natasha will be posted soon!), but all three of them also have incredibly distinctive styles that they have worked really hard to develop over time. I was hoping that by posting these ladies' experiences, it could be inspiring or helpful for some of you out there!

Today's entry is a guest blog by Michelle Stanek who has awesomely taken time out of her insane schedule to write for y'all! So thank you, Michelle =) She's an immensely talented pole dancer: Pole Drama Winner at EMW Polarity 2010, USPDF Amateur Champion 2011, Pole Dance Universe Champion 2011, and she will be competing in the highly prestigious Pole Art in Finland in October. And she just so happens to teach at the same studio that I do. But,  she's also a really good friend with a fabulous sense of humor, and she's followed a really interesting path to become the pole dancer that she is today. Currently, Michelle lives in NYC, is an X-pert master trainer and teaches at Crunch, Shockra and Body  & Pole, where she trains as well.

So, without more ado, I present to you: Michelle's take on personal style.

As the dust and glitter of USPDF and Pole Dance Universe settles, several people have asked me about my style of pole dance and how it developed to what it is today, or at least the style I have presented in both the PFA's Polarity and USPDF competitions. Two years ago when I did my first pole performance/competition, Polesque, I described myself as "Sassy McNasty VonMelty." Now my style has been described as a blend of ballet, modern, grace and aggression. And if I am pole dancing, God willing, in four more years, I'm sure it will develop into something new as I grow as a dancer, artist and person.

When I started pole dancing four years ago at Crunch Gym I would go for an hour class after work on Friday nights. No one knew much in terms of difficult moves or technique and all we really needed were our teeny shorts, stilettos, club music, hair whipping, booty popping and a pole anyway! We just had FUN. I met my best friends in this class. Afterwards, we would go out for margaritas and start a fun-filled New York City weekend. I remember thinking, how COOL is this? I am an art history professor and a program curator who knows how to work a pole like a stripper...but i'm not a stripper! It made me feel strong, sexy and mysterious! That was the attraction of pole dancing at first. And that is what made me come back to class one, two, then three times a week. Who walks around being super sassy and sexy all the time? No one! So this hour was my hour to unleash my inner diva in a room of supportive, diverse, fun women and friends. After about two years, that novelty did wear off when I began to progress in strength and skill. I saw that there can be so much more variety in they way I could pole dance. And maybe dancing like a stripper wasn't what I wanted to do *all* the time. I wanted to explore and revisit my dance background and bring that to the pole.

I have a classical and modern dance background. By age 13 I was pretty ensconced in the ballet world and had amazing opportunities to perform, travel and study with some of the best teachers available to a teenager in Pennsylvania. Around 17 I discovered modern dance and focused on that, in addition to art history and business, in college, where I was also lucky to work with incredible contemporary choreographers. When I was 30 and two years into pole dancing, I realized that I could really utilize my extension, flexibility, grace and dance background on the pole. After a few years away from dance, a broken foot and the decision to "get a real job," pole reignited my deeply ingrained passion for dance. I got back into modern dance classes at Peridance, Dance New Amsterdam and Broadway Dance Center. Taking those dance classes and being free from the binding pole felt amazing. And it really helped to expand my movement vocabulary beyond the standard pole dance floor work and typical sexy flows. And instead of watching so many pole videos on YouTube I started to watch a lot more videos of my favorite teachers, choreographers and dance companies like Slam, TOKYO, Calen Kurka, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and others for inspiration and ideas. I even recalled a lot of old choreography I did years ago. I started to dance to music that was more lyrical or classical or obscure to help influence new movement. This resulted in a lot of trial and error, epic fails, very weird and ineffective movement, creative blocks and confusion of styles. I had freestyles where I was a hot mess and nothing I did looked good, felt good or made sense to the eye! Like the simple flexed foot can be incredibly effective if used in a meaningful way. If it's just a superficial flexed foot for flexed-foot-weirdness-sake (?!) it's distracting from the fluidity of lines. That's a minute detail but a world of difference.

Although personal style is important and feels good when you find it, versatility is important too.  It's important to show that you are not just a one-trick pony and as a dancer and artist, you can perform in different styles. Although I struggled with USPDF's mandatory 5-inch minimum heel requirement (we fight to be taken seriously as athletes and fight to shed the image of pole dance in seedy clubs as strippers...yet we are forced to maintain that connection through what you cannot deny are "stripper" shoes), I appreciated the opportunity to be obviously sexy and serve up the sass for round 1 and then take the shoes off and get back to my modern roots for round 2. The innate sensuality of pole dance that initially reeled me in is still a huge reason why I enjoy it so much. But taking off the shoes presents me with the opportunity to be unusually and not so obviously fierce and sexy. And that's the kind of sexy I like.

Finding your own style is difficult. It can take years. In college and graduate school (I have my BA and MA in art history) I hated the word "derivative." People over-used this word for lack of a better one to say that a particular artists' work reminds them too much of another artists' work who came before them, as if they were just copying their style, and should be dismissed as uncreative copycats. No one wants to be an uncreative, derivative copycat! These are also called trends, people. They define artistic genres all the time. That's why textbooks have chapters called "Abstract Expressionism" and "Surrealism" and "Neo-classicism." Sorry...this is tangential. When you are just starting out, and most of us are considering how young pole dance is, it's ok to find a style you like that you see out there. But find things from your own life to incorporate into your dance. I have a friend who is a brilliant choreographer who will always incorporate the spelling of her husband's name, Max, into her work, like YMCA! in hidden ways. But it's always there. And it's special and unique. Spend time alone on the pole to explore. Lose the shoes. Put them back on. Turn the lights off and forget about the mirror. Close your eyes. Then inspect every detail of your movement in the mirror and see what a difference a slight angle in the tilt of your head can make. Dance to Bach then Lil Wayne then Adele. Take other dance classes. Experiment. Fail. Laugh. Grow.

Thanks for reading, Bad Kitties! If you enjoyed this blog, stay tuned for Natasha and Amber's perspectives coming soon!

If you'd like, you can connect with me on Facebook and find my pole blog here.

Kelly Yvonne’s Girl Next Door: A Pole Dance Soiree is a delicious, fun and refreshing collection of pole dance vignettes performed at the King King in Hollywood every Sunday.  And the message is this: Everyone has an inner vixen.  Now invite her out to play!  The show opens with a few “housewives” dressed in peek-a-boo tutus and corsets meeting their new neighbors.  There is one housewife in particular who has not quite discovered her inner sex kitten.  Another woman takes it upon herself to begin to school her in the art of sexiness. This is, of course, all done very playfully and tongue-in-cheek.  And to a sexed up version of Mr. Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”  It’s outstanding.

There are fifteen performances and each one is a mini-story told through dance.  Most of them are done on the pole and the floor with the exception of an aerial hoop show above the bar, and another performance done on aerial silks.  There are two poles – one on the stage and one in the middle of the audience.  The dancers use both, as well as a small runway that juts out into the audience.  What ties the performances together is the idea that each of these women is taking a break from her daytime persona and revealing to the audience her sensual, sexy, secret side.  The program lists each of the dancers and their “day jobs” on one side.  Turn the program over and you see each of the dancers listed by the name of the song they perform to.  “Il Mio Bel Foco” had a violinist and an opera singer as music.  A pole dancer danced at the mercy of a cruel ringleader, bearing a whip, until she finally wins him over.  “On the Couch” was a man (well, a woman dressed as a man) begging for forgiveness from his woman for being late, ultimately seducing her by the end.  “Need You Tonight” was a dancer who performed for a video camera, her eyes never leaving the lens.  And “Bloodstream” was done entirely behind a sheer curtain with maybe only three pole tricks.  But it was easily one of the most intoxicating performances of the evening – with the exception of the finale of course. In the finale, each of the dancers took her turn dancing on a giant net above the stage, followed by a walk through the audience, a trick on a pole in the audience, a sexy little wall dance and finally, a walk or a crawl onto the stage for a final bow.  And they owned it.

Girl Next Door works well as a show because the simplicity of the presentation allows the unique and very different styles of the dancers to shine through without losing a sense of continuity and without taking itself too seriously. In between the different dances we watch the reserved housewife, with the help of her neighbor, discover and unleash her sexy side until, at the very end, she gets on the pole.  The show is sponsored by X-Pole, The Pole Garage, Quain Photo and Alexander’s For Hair and produced, created and directed by Kelly Yvonne.  It’s in its second season and the company has 28 members.

Girls Next Door does an amazing job of blending pole artistry, athleticism and dance into a sexy, flirty, fun-filled show.  The secret is out.  Now go see for yourself!

Www.girlnextdoorshow.com for Tickets

Performances are the first Sunday of every month at the King King in Hollywood

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending Performance Night at Evolve Pole Dance Studio.  Performance Night was started by Annmarie Davies, founder of  United Pole Artists and it showcases both students and teachers with varying levels of expertise.  There three things that set Performance night at Evolve apart from other studio recitals:

1. You are encouraged to tip the dancers with faux dollars.

2. The dances are unchoreographed.

3. There is an open bar.

I’m assuming everyone is on board with reason number three and I don’t have to go into the merits of having an open bar.  Reason number one, however, might raise a few eyebrows.  Isn’t that the exact opposite of the image we are trying to create in the pole dancing industry?  Isn’t it demeaning to the women dancing?  As it turns out, no.  The dollars are a form of appreciation, along with applause and screams and both the dancers and the audience (men and women) understand this.  Now you and your boyfriend might have different reasons for throwing the dollars.  But at the end of the day, the attitude of the audience members is deeply respectful of both the art and the sensuality of pole dancing.  Which it turns out, is exactly Annmarie’s goal in creating the venue.  “I wanted to bridge the gap between stripping and pole dancing.  I want the women to have the experience of performing for “money” but in a safe environment.  I’m bringing a

little bit of Jumbo’s into the studio”, says Davies.  Jumbo’s Clown Room is a famous bikini and burlesque bar in Hollywood.  It’s known for

staging performance art striptease.  Davies is a performer there.

Reason number two: You might think an unchoreographed dance translates into disaster. Not in the pole world.  The dancers were amazing to watch.  And frankly, the lack of choreography made the movement more sensual and inspired than the usual pole show.  There was plenty of floor work and the dancers also had an excellent sense of musicality.  There was a woman who danced while a man sang and played guitar on stage with her.  Another woman, who had only been dancing a month and a half, showed off tricks that made me green with envy.  There was a massage therapist who moved as though her body was made of liquid. And another student finished her performance by pulling another student out of the crowd, and including her in her last pole trick.  And finally you had two beautiful performances from the magical Mina Mortezaie and Annemarie herself.  My jaw was on the floor. I’ve decided that AnneMarie is going to be my newest pole teacher.

So next time Annemarie puts on a performance night, if you are in LA  and you have twenty dollars, head over to Evolve and see what the buzz is about.  You will NOT be disappointed.