BOGS ARE TRANS* – by Siân Docksey
I’ve spent the last few weeks bouncing around U.K. pole studios getting material for my Queer Natures artist residency. My project is about pole dancing ugly animals, and exploring what we can learn about the politics of desirability, queerness and nature by looking at e.g. pole dancing vermin. Also, I just think stuff pole dancing with too many legs is fun.
“Desirability” comes with the territory of pole dancing because we’ve inherited this art form from strippers and sex work, so I’m interested in both embracing that fully and finding ways to subvert it. In March I visited two experts to gather ideas for each end of the spectrum: I did an intensive with Old School Pole icon Jamie Taylor at her Pembrokeshire studio to completely immerse myself in stripper-style, sensual pole, then went to Edinburgh to work with the brilliant movement artist Callum Stevens who specialises in “Ugly” pole. These formed two columns in my brain of “A: Sexy Pole, and B: Ugly Pole” which I’m now thinking about how to combine into my own workshop. Plus bugs.
🌸tell me I’m sexy🌸
I didn’t expect it to feel so weird to intentionally introduce “ugly” movement into a pole dancing space, and I’m still digesting lots of thoughts about it. My approach as an instructor is to cool off and soften ideas about “ugliness” that students might be bringing about their bodies into a pole dancing studio. I think part of the art is to create a supportive environment where everyone can connect with and enjoy movement, whatever it looks like, so I generally try to banish anxiety about what’s “attractive” or “unattractive.” It’s been a big learning for me so far to be less scared of letting “ugly” sit as an idea in the space, and see what happens when you lean into it more playfully.
It’s a headmelt because overall, my favourite experience as an instructor is when someone comes to class thinking pole might not be “for” them, then discovers they can be really good at it. There’s loads of stuff everyone can do that fits their own personality, gender and vibe, instead of working against it. All pole instructors have their own ethos, but for me there’s no need to force-feed any one universal way of doing pole that looks “good”: I’m much more interested in movement that feels fun, and helping people find shapes and swishy stuff that they’re super comfortable and happy in.
As part of the residency project, last month the whole team spent a few days on a retreat workshopping together in Dartington, where we were swapping ideas for all areas of research around this project. My intention for this trip was to be like a sponge and just draw in all this stuff from the amazing collaborators. Luckily my own pole workshop was the very first thing on the programme as a team icebreaker so, after that, I was off the hook and could mostly just listen.
There’s background noise for me on this project about the sustainability of making art at all. All my friends in creative industries are in a rolling conversation about how you keep making work in systems that do not work. There is a collective as well as personal shift to release ways of working that are just not compatible with the cost of living and how fuckoo’d the economy is. I don’t have any answers at the moment, and I’m deeply grateful to be on a residency where I can be in more of a “listening” setting for a while. My hope is that by the end of this residency project we can publish some toolkits and resources for other artists to demand better.