Pole fitness is vastly different from the usual Roses repertoire, but possibly the most entertaining!
In a way, it’s quite individualistic. Every performer wears a different uniform, dances to a different song and has a different reason for taking to the stage. The sport isn’t limited to a certain gender or body type. There are no categories, except those based on abilities, so the performances glided seamlessly into each other. But running as a common thread between them lies a strong level of personal creativity which exudes loudly outwards.
There’s a reason it’s called Pole Fitness. This sport involves some serious core and arm strength to fight gravity and hang upside down in a gaggle of perfectly poised limbs.
Before each performer took to the pole, the host read out a little paragraph about them. There was a pageant-like element to this, explaining how long they’d been doing the sport, and explaining the creative vision behind their act. One performer got into the sport to improve her confidence, channeling a flirty femme-fatale element. Morgan, one of the advanced performers, executed a conceptually challenging routine about an alcoholic’s journey receiving a message to start recovery. There was a certain contemporary dance element to a lot of the routines, which we weren’t expecting.
The storytelling of each routine was completely unique to the performer, with themes ranging from an emotive, more serious routine based on the animated tv show “Arcane”, to a playful, feel- good routine about dancing around your room to your favourite song. The performers are in complete creative control of their routines, down to their outfits, their choreography and their song choices. Iconic tunes such as “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz and “Telephone” by Lady Gaga, were just some of the wide range of songs danced to during the event. Props were also used by many of the performers, with the most explosive (literally) being a bottle of champagne, which dancer, Ashley, popped at the end of her routine, spraying the party drink all over the judges and herself… talk about going out with a bang!
The pole was cleaned thoroughly in between each number. But during this time, instead of having us all sat in silence twiddling our thumbs or making awkward small talk with the people next to us, the host kept the spectators entertained with bartending and relationship stories. In that way, the event was half sport/half standup comedy, and the audience was encouraged to share their own dating horror stories.
“I feel like everyone’s in a situationship at the minute,” the host told us candidly.
At the end of the event, a third pole was brought out for group numbers. Up to four dancers performed on stage at a time, and these groups often involved expressive collaboration between the performers. More so impressive was the fact that so many of the performers wore large, sky-scraper stiletto heels.
As a nice touch, a lot of the judges performed at various points throughout the 6-hour showcase. It felt more like a personal celebration and telling of emotive stories, than a competition at times.
I spoke to Adam, one of the male performers. He joined the society in his first year of uni and said “I saw a guy who did this really impressive routine and then I thought to myself ‘wait…I can do that!’”
“There’s a lot of flexibility and a lot of conditioning that needs to go into it,” he explained, “just having your skin, having to try and grip onto a metal pole in an awkward position is not a natural thing, so it does take just a lot of, like, bruising and redness and practice to be able to hold on well.”
York won in the end; York got 233 points and Lancaster got 221.
One thing’s for sure, we were thoroughly entertained as first- time pole fitness watchers, and by the end of the event, our shared consensus was one of deep respect for all of the dancers, who left us in awe of their incredible strength, lyricism, performance skills and confidence!