MAN STICK IT TO THE

Pole dancing has been grabbing headlines in Edinburgh this year as it became embroiled in city leaders’ failed attempts to ban lap-dancing clubs. Rachel Ashenden takes a look at four Fringe shows using pole as a key element in exploring the personal, the political and the plain funny >>

Earlier this year, the Scottish courts overturned Edinburgh Council’s plans to impose a total ban on lap-dancing clubs across the city. It was ruled that the council, which included pole dancing in what councillors deemed as ‘commercial sexual exploitation’, acted unlawfully. Believe it or not, the council had even tried to block sex workers from attending the court hearing. According to the United Sex Workers Union, this ‘nil cap’ on lap-dancing clubs would have resulted in 100 women losing their jobs, potentially pushing them into unregulated and unsafe working environments.

Against this backdrop of political contention and union triumph, four solo performers are bringing their pole-dancing talents to this year’s Fringe. Scottish comedian Fern Brady used to open her stand-up sets with the pithy line, ‘I know what you’re thinking: why is the stripper talking?’ Creative polymath Siân Docksey explains that this question has been burned into her brain, as she queries the dichotomous choice women are restricted to, of ‘picking between being seen or being heard’. In a bid to experience both, she integrates pole dancing with stand-up in her show, Pole Yourself Together! (admittedly, this is also the approach her tax advisor recommends so that she can continue expensing pole-dancing lessons for her comedy gigs).

Two years in development, the performance brings Docksey’s unique absurdist humour to the stage. As she readies herself for this year’s Fringe, she reflects upon the socio-political questions entangled within her routine. She returns to a pressing question explored in her earlier Work In Polegress show: can pole dancing be funny? Pole Yourself Together! marks Docksey’s contentment with the questions which previously troubled her, including whether pole is tied to wanting sexualised attention and if that’s necessarily a bad thing. She recognises the necessity for the feminist debate to move on from such limited notions of what a woman can want, do or be.

Alongside the financial and physical, pole dancing has unexpectedly proffered a wealth of wellbeing benefits for Docksey. In a recent op-ed for The Independent, she generously wrote about how pole enabled her to feel ‘fully connect[ed] to [her] body’, in the wake of a complex PTSD diagnosis. Drawn to pole as a ‘self-repair tool’, Docksey proclaims that Pole Yourself Together! is about ‘banishing dread’: an indicator of where her head was when she wrote her entry for the Fringe brochure.

A different kind of existentialism can be expected in Scottish writer and stand-up comedian Jay Lafferty’s show, Bahookie Alluding to the ageism which prevails in the arts and culture sector, in which women are given a short window to ‘make it’, Lafferty initially took to pole dancing to compete with performers in their alleged prime. Finding comedic confidence and ‘power in ageing’, pole has become a tactic to negotiate the underlying rules around risk-taking in the arts. ‘It is about seizing the opportunities which have previously passed me by,’ explains Lafferty. ‘Ultimately, it’s about letting go of the fear of failure and recognising it’s OK to end up on your arse sometimes.’ Speaking both metaphorically and literally here, Lafferty expands upon the training involved to pull Bahookie off. A teacher has put her through her paces over the course of nine months, which she describes as ‘apt’, because ‘it’s been just about as painful as childbirth’.

When we discuss Edinburgh Council’s failed ban on lap dancing clubs, Lafferty speaks honestly, admitting she cannot speak to this with any authority as she doesn’t have the lived experience of pole dancing in that context. However, Bahookie’s feminist slant is about ‘learning to love your body at any age’, and in turn, embracing ageing and sensuality. This autobiographical show will explore Lafferty’s relationship with her body across this nine-month pole journey, as well as feeding off pivotal life events.

The challenge of learning pole solely for Fringe purposes has similarly captivated Clementine Bogg-Hargroves, who began lessons just over a year ago. This is no mean feat, with BoggHargroves’ injuries ranging from the standard bruising to tearing her rotator cuff and having to take eight weeks off training to heal. Her show, titled Please Love Me, is a tragi-comic spectacle which is autobiographical in scope. Using pole dancing (and singing) to tell the story of her volatile teenage years, Bogg-Hargroves analyses the behaviours associated with co-dependency, discerning the distinction between validation and love with a healthy dose of hindsight. While she found pole dancing in early adulthood, it still aids the show’s coming-ofage narrative, particularly as she has learned to accept where she is now, including her physical limitations.

Elsewhere at the Fringe, the ironically named Lucy And Friends is a cabaret solo show in which pole dancing features prominently in the first act. Without going into too much detail and ruining an element of surprise, Lucy McCormick uses the cabaret format to ‘open up questions around systems of power, and the labour and value negotiations of making Fringe shows.’ Befriending her audience in the process, McCormick capitalises on the ‘entertaining’ and ‘sexy’ nature of a pole performance to explore how loneliness can be conquered with community and connection. These four acts use pole dancing to excavate internal turmoil, bodily autonomy and patriarchal systems of power, but as McCormick reminds us, it’s also just a ‘great workout’. Across these shows, pole dancing emerges with a multiplicity of meanings for these creators. As they trample on outdated criticisms of pole as an ‘exploitative’ form of expression, sexuality and sensuality are not dampened in the process.

Siân Docksey: Pole Yourself Together!, Pleasance Dome, 2–28 August, 7.10pm; Jay Lafferty: Bahookie, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 2–28 August, 6.20pm; Please Love Me, Pleasance Dome, 2–26 August, 8.20pm; Lucy And Friends, Pleasance Courtyard, 2–23 August, 5.20pm.

Taylor Wessing

All the way through to September, contemporary portrait photography is celebrated with the Taylor Wessing prize exhibition. While some celebrity shots are in there (Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard and Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford), the majority of images are of regular people doing fairly regular things. Stuff like chilling in the garden, hugging a favourite toy and being in love, such as in this image by Suleika Mueller. ‘Shaheen & Bari’ comes from her series entitled The Muslim In-Between. (Brian Donaldson) n National Galleries Of Scotland: Portrait, until 10 September.

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