It’s Not Pole Dance, It’s…
As Pole dance has evolved into new popularity across the world it has been given an array of different titles including polenastics, pole art, pole fitness and pole sport. While I welcome innovative thinking from business owners and events teams, I wonder why the general cohort of students are trying so hard to move away from the title “pole dance”. I can see how business owners are using these titles as a unique selling point to attract more customers and I think they are pretty smart to do so. Specific to pole competitors I can understand the use of pole sport as a term to describe their competitive activity because that is what sport is; an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Similarly, if you attend a pole class designed with the same specificity as a regular fitness program, the label pole fitness is also relevant. However, more often than not, the pole students / performers who are changing the name from pole dance to something else are not doing any of the above. They are simply learning / choreographing dance with the inclusion of a pole. (more…)