Over the last decade, pole dancing has evolved from being a strip club-exclusive to a widely practiced form of fitness and self-expression. Alessandra Izzo has basically been involved in Australia’s pole dancing community since before there was such a thing. Early next month, Izzo brings the live spectacular Inception: Where Dreams Become Reality to Thornbury Theatre, which aims to highlight pole dancing’s core expressive capacity.
“It’s become this amazing form of performance,” she says. “I wanted to see something that was amazing that really harnessed what pole dancing embodies. But also I wanted something that was going to be really enjoyable for a very broad audience – not just the pole community.”
Australia’s first pole dancing school opened in 2004. In the last five years, the pole community has experienced marked growth, attracting more and more people – both men and women – country-wide. Still, the public perception is largely limited to the dance’s red light origins. Izzo acknowledges this is where pole dancing stemmed from, but she feels no affinity with that particular style of dance. “In the Western world, in the last ten years, [pole dancing] really did grow from the strip club pole. That’s why in the very beginning it was lots of high heel shoes and head rolls and body rolls and all that jazz. People have the misconception that that‘s all pole dancing is. It did form a really critical element of bringing pole to the public. However, where pole has come to now has taken a lot of elements from things that are so far removed from strip clubs.
“It’s the same as if you imagine that all dancers put on ballet shoes,” she adds. “There is so much diversity in the type of pole that can be performed. I would never throw discouragement at A) pole dancing strippers and B) high heels and head flicks. There are people who enjoy that. [But] I want absolutely none of that in my show, specifically because I’d like to explore the side of pole that is more contemporary, more acrobatic, more fun and it’s not utilising any of those particulars roots of pole. I want to break the mould as far as people’s perceptions.”
So how exactly will she go about re-drawing the public image of pole dancing? Inception won’t simply entail one dancer after the next, maneuvering around the pole. In order to underline the level of esteem that pole dancing deserves, the show will also encompass aerial acrobatics, contemporary dance and circus arts. “Contemporary dance or circus type elements and aerial acrobatics – it all adds different flavours,” Izzo explains. “That’s what’s going to make Inception not just unique, but really exciting and interesting to watch. Juxtaposing everything together will open people’s minds to the fact that they are all equal and help to break pole dancing out of a particular pre-conception that people have surrounding it, from it’s roots.”
While Izzo’s determined to establish pole dancing as a veritable form of performance art, Inception isn’t merely going to be a beseeching exposition. Rather, it comprises a central narrative, which will provide further audience stimulation and inject overall cohesion.
“I’ve created the show itself using pieces that mostly already existed and that I’d been flabbergasted by how amazing they are,” she says. “The storyline happened after I’d picked a couple of really key pieces; I then created a main character and his dramas along his journey, [while] using these really incredible individual pieces to help tell that story. It gives an extra element of meaning to the individual pieces themselves.”
The show’s title directly relates to the fact that events of this kind are basically non-existent in Australia. As it stands, the major platform for fledgling pole women and men to demonstrate their talents is in the competition environment. This might offer the performers some valuable learning experience, but it doesn’t exactly foster the art’s expressive quality. “People who are into pole, we really enjoy going to see the top level artists,” says Izzo, “but predominantly what happens is we see them in competition. We don’t see them in actual showcases and things like that because it just doesn’t really exist. It’s quite rare for the pole performers themselves to get a lot of work outside of teaching and starting their own studios.”
Thus, by grouping together of some of the most skilled performers from the various interrelated disciplines, Inception promises to be a bold exhibition of pole dancing in its most developed form. And, as for the future, Izzo’s projections aren’t at all modest. “All of the performers are top level performers and they’ve created these pieces that are incredible to watch and they’ll be meaningful next to each other. In some ways I see this as a fledgling very early stages Cirque Du Soleil, because [the performers] are just in a class of their own.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
