Mel Nutter as Baudelaire

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Chair Dance

December 17, 2016 /

Since being away from my pole and a regular studio space, I have had more time to explore other aspects of my dance practice. Mornings start with at least an hour of yoga and stretching before breakfast. After some work or time exploring our new city I find that my desire to just move leads me to long floor work sessions and most recently choreographing a chair dance routine!

The processes involved in chair dancing has challenged my creativity, flow, and stage presence and has offered a new perspective on tricks and floor work. It’s a great foundation to strengthen your dance skill set too!

Many pole studios offer chair and lap dancing in conjunction with pole, or as separate classes. Training in Sydney, I joined chair dance for one term a few years ago. As a group of three we performed what we learned at a showcase. But aside from this class, my experience dancing on, with, and around a chair has been limited.

Creating a chair routine and recording my chair dance freestyles, I have become aware of three elements of chair dance that may compliment your pole practice.

Creativity
I have to admit that when I first chose to start working on a chair routine I was stumped. I had a song, and knew what feeling I wanted the choreography to take, but it was hard to know where to begin. I could not rely on standby pole combos or spins. I was also limited by the type of chair available, how it could hold my weight in various balances, and the space it offered for placement in poses.

Making shapes and coming up with something new is challenging. I was surprised though at how many of the tricks and shapes I was able to translate from my pole experience. A pike, a back bend, a dynamic transition from a closed shape to an open one. I was reminded about the quality of the movement that matters, not just a shape having a name.

Unpacking this took time and experimentation, but I’m so glad to have had these moments. When I do get back on a pole I hope to have such a larger repertoire of tricks and formulations to return with.

Versatility
Using a prop such as a chair, or an ottoman as you can see in my final routine, offered new angles to explore floor poses and transitions that I was familiar with. It also challenged me to think of new ways to move around the space. The ottoman does not have a back, so I had to make a decision to have it against the wall, or to be able to move around it from all sides. When working with a chair in conjunction with a pole you can also choose to have the chair rest in front of the pole or place it to one side.

I really enjoyed the process of discovering the wall and then working it in to my dance. As I recorded my freestyles and watched how my arms and legs responded to the space, I found a new sensuality in my movements. Touching the chair and wall could be a movement in itself in a way that is not always possible when dancing with a pole.

Engagement
Eye contact, facial expressions, and hand gestures, are all elements of chair dance that make it more intimate. The audience is right there with you and being able to captivate them is much more important. I have already written about stage presence and polishing your choreography, but there is a whole language of the body that can help you tell your story. This was perhaps one of the most powerful lessons I have learned from engaging in chair dance, and something that is probably more related to burlesque and exotic dancing. I’m excited to see how this evolves as I work on new chair and floor routines too.

My “What To Do When You Don’t Have a Pole” videos from my pole hiatus last year got some great air time. Chair dance has reminded me how much I do just love to dance. There have been many moments in the last few weeks where I warm up by just putting on my long socks and turning up the volume. A space to dance needs just a floor and your body, no props required.

I do, however, recommend a chair (or a footstool) if you are looking for ways to change up your dance practice and inspire new movements and inspiration.

You can watch my chair dance routine on Vimeo here.

Pole In Style

November 25, 2016 /

I recently partnered with Pole In Style, where you may have seen my guest blog post – The Devil in the Details. As I get to write more content, you as a reader receive a gift of 10% your purchase from their collection. Just use the code MELNUTTER at the checkout and the 10% will be taken off the price straight away!

I am so pleased with the quality and design of the Pole In Style collection. Too often pole brands offer pieces that are too bulky, too skimpy or just plain uncomfortable! I have both the Floral Set (in blue and purple) and the Dancing Warrior Set (white), and I can recommend both to upgrade your pole wear collection.

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Bottoms
We’ve all stood in the change room when trying on new pole shorts and checked for coverage. Bending over, squatting down, turning ourselves into a pretzel to double triple check that there are no bits hanging out!

The Dancing Warrior bottom are cut like briefs, but with elastic all the way around the crotch and leg holes, nothing is going to move while dancing. They sit low on the hips to flatter any figure, and there is no centre seam for that awful camel toe! I wear an extra small in these bottoms which fit like an Australian size 8. Ordering online can be tricky, but these are true to size.

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The Floral Set bottoms I have in both blue and purple. They are more like a boyleg short than a brief, so offer more coverage and give a more sporty look. The contrast waist trim really helps to make these look flattering, and the side trim details sit perfectly on your hips. Same as above, I wear an extra small in these shorts. The entire Pole In Style range is made with four way stretch fabric offering the best in comfort and fit. My dance practice sessions often go for two hours or more, and not only did the shorts not move, they also did not dig in at the seams.

Tops
All of the Pole In Style tops come with removable cup inserts. I am an Australian bust size 10D and some crops tend to flatten my shape so I tend to leave them in. The lining inside the tops create a stable pocket for the cup inserts so they don’t move around. The lining is also made with four way stretch fabric, so even without the cup inserts you fell supported and comfortable.

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The Dancing Warrior top is a halter design, with a high neck at the front and cut out detailing in the back. I wear a small and was pleased that the base of the top did not ride up and create underboob when dancing and stretching. Everything stayed in place. I love the look of the back detailing. It’s a striking addition to what looks quite modest at the front. You could easily get away with using this set as a costume for a performance.

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The Floral Set top offers great support. Once again there was no chance of it riding up and creating underboob. For bustier women who feel more comfortable with a bra under their crop, this top is cute and strappy, with enough coverage to make it possible.

Leggings

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Pole In Style also have a range of leggings and tees in addition to their pole wear. I snapped up a pair of their gray leggings to trial and they didn’t disappoint! I wear an extra small and many other brands are often too short in the leg. These are made for tall women in mind! The leggings are full length with a waist that sits just below my belly button. I love the sneaky bit of colour on the waist band, and once again the four way stretch fabric keeps everything in place, all day. They even have two pockets, perfect for holding your phone or keys if you don’t want to bring your bag to the gym! I wore these leggings on a hiking trip. They were super comfortable, and breathable, and I didn’t have to keep hitching them up like other leggings I have tried.

Customer Service
Mai from Pole In Style is available to answer any questions you may have about your order. She is a pole dancer and yoga enthusiast herself, so she knows what active women are looking for in design and fit. Pole In Style are also on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where the pictures speak for themselves!

All of the Pole In Style range can also be used for swimming! How versatile is that?!  You’ll definitely see me at the pool or beach rocking my new Floral Set soon!

code-logoHead over to Pole In Style and check out their latest collection as well as their pieces on sale. You can use the 10% off code for any purchase!

If you are a studio owner, Mai is also able to set you up as a wholesale partner, enabling you to stock Pole In Style in your studio so your students and customers can by directly from you! Contact me or Pole In Style directly to talk about this option.

An Effective Warm Up

November 4, 2016 /

Whether you are training in a studio or at home, it is essential that you incorporate a warm up routine into your poledance or floorwork session. An effective warm up will prepare the body for exercise, lubricate the joints to support mobility, and increase blood flow, bringing oxygen to the muscles.

When leading a warm up, your instructor should be able to offer movements that prepare the entire body, and also include exercises which target muscles and joints that are specific to the pole moves you will be working on. For example, extra hip stretches for a class working on split moves, or some added shoulder and upper back exercises to help you engage the correct muscles for deadlifts and ayeshas.

At home, this can be a little tricky. You may remember movements from a warm up in class, but without the instruction and guidance from a teacher, you may be tempted to skip over reps or rush your routine just to get on the pole sooner.

I’ve seen many dancers do this in practice time too. Walking in, getting changed and doing a few shoulder rolls and hip circles before jumping on the pole and pulling out a crazy combo. Nine out of ten times you could do this and be fine. But you increase your chance of injury by not preparing the muscles to engage in such vigorous activity.

When planning your home practice, make sure you have included time for an effective warm up and cool down. Both should take about 10-20 minutes, longer if you are adding conditioning exercises, or working on flexibility and foam rolling.

“The warm-up should be a combination of rhythmic exercise which begins to raise the heartrate and raise muscle temperature, and static stretching through a full range of motion. “ (DanceProject.ca)

Consider the muscle groups that will be active in the types of tricks you are training. Working on Jade Splits? be sure to warm up your hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes, and quads. Working on your Handspring? You will need to warm up your shoulders, back, forearms, and wrists.

When creating your own warm up, keep these points in mind:

Keep it Dynamic – you are aiming to increase blood flow and get your heart rate up. Don’t just sit in static stretches. Flow through the movement and explore your range of motion. Yoga flow can be a great way to get started.

Jump Around – Break up the kicks and stretches with some cardio, star jumps, burpees, mountain climbers, or just running on the spot. It will help you feel warm and support your stamina for those long pole routines.

Turn It Up – if you are lacking motivation for your warm up, put on some music that gets you moving. The hardest part is often getting started.

Make it Functional – consider the movements and tricks you want to train and ask, how can your warm up support these? Knee lifts and high kicks for hip mobility. Add a thera band and put in some resistance exercises to warm up your wrists, arms and shoulders.

Range of Motion – Explore the movements from all angles. Lay down on your back and do you leg kicks and extensions. Add a chest roll to your upper body movements, or pause in a pose and do some arm circles, and see how you can target and engage different muscles.

Coordination – remember, a warm up prepares your body for what it is about to do. Pole dancing requires lots of coordination and body awareness, a relationship between your mind and your body. Animal walks are a great way to get you brain in the right mindset for pole, offering exercises that alternate between both sides of the body.

Breath and Movement – elevatED Education talk a lot about how breath supports movement. There is no use increasing blood flow if your breath is shallow and not spreading oxygen around the body. If you have been to a yoga class before, you would have been instructed to pair your movements with your inhale and exhale. Try this in your own warm up, finding your own rhythm and breathing into a stretch.

Add Weights – Use a medicine ball, kettle bell, or ankle weights to up the challenge. Keep the ankle weights on as you start some pole conditioning, doing some pencil spins or straight leg straddles!

On a final note, remember that during a warm up you also have a chance to check in with your body. Any injury or illness you have can often be recognized, and further injury prevented. It’s much safer to be alerted to a tight hamstring or unhappy hip flexor when you are still on the ground, rather than mid combo 2 metres up the pole!

Being a regular home poler, I found myself a consistent warm up routine that I have now recorded and can share with you.

 

If you are a subscriber to my newsletter you will also be granted access to my Dance Warm Up at the end of November, a fun way to freestyle around the pole before starting any big tricks. Great for some added cardio and to work on those staple pole moves – body rolls, hip circles and kicks.

 

Self Awareness

October 22, 2016 /

JDPS Showcase March 2014

Last month I saw a video of Jamilla Deville interviewed by The Pole Dancing Chronicles. Sharing pole tips is a fairly common Q&A, most pole dancers offering advice that falls into a few typical categories –

 

These are all very practical tips, some of which I have written about on this blog too! But Jamilla is not just a pole dancer. She is an artist and her entire lifestyle is focused on training, body practices, health, and performance.

So, what was her pole tip you ask? She states,

“Pole is all about being aware of what your own body is doing … the more you grow as a pole athlete or artist the more you become self aware”

Self awareness can take many forms. There is spatial related self awareness, involving the knowledge and feeling of where your limbs and body are in space. Upside-down, hanging from one leg, finding your foot with your hand behind your body, it is obvious why self awareness in this sense is important when pole dancing.

There is also body related self awareness. How do you use your body to convey an idea? Showgirls and dancers have lots of practice in using their body to engage the audience. Hand gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, the poses and shapes chosen by a dancer, all support stage presence and the overall impact of a performance.

Let me also suggest that you may cultivate self awareness of the mind, through pole dancing just like any form of performance art or body practice.

Self awareness is defined as
“conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires”

I recently shared some insight into my choreography process, explaining how I use material from my own experience as inspiration for concepts and performances. In this way pole dancing, and choreography creation, is like a reflection tool, helping you to unpack your thoughts and feelings about an event, reaching a resolution or a state of deeper understanding.

Embedding your dance with meaning and making conscious decisions about what to add or leave out, is similar to the process of any artist (painter, writer, photographer, sculptor etc) that fosters greater self awareness. You find a way to share a feeling, motive, or desire, through the medium of expression.

This process may also reveal broader ideas such as why you choose pole dance as your medium of expression. Does it stimulate a feeling or desire, or a character within yourself that you wish to express?

Asking yourself these questions can reveal some insightful ideas that may inspire a new performance piece, or a whole new direction in your training. For those seeking authentic expression and a sense of fulfillment, the act of fostering self awareness can be creatively satisfying too.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on self awareness or how pole dance offers you avenues for growth. Comment here or tag me on Facebook!

Time to Say Goodbye

October 12, 2016 /

Last month my partner and I landed in Cambodia, the beginning of an undetermined period of time abroad. Saying goodbye to Sydney was full of mixed emotions. I quit my job of over ten years, bid farewell to friends and family, and had to say goodbye to my home pole!

As pole dancers know, dance is therapy. So before taking down my pole and leaving my home studio I spent some time freestyling and revisiting flow, reflecting on the performances that were created in that space.

Each morning for three weeks before we left, I woke with the earworm Time To Say Goodbye. Responding to the call I began to choreograph a piece to the song. There wasn’t enough time to record it as a single take, but whilst wrapping up the lose ends of Sydney over the last month I’ve had time to work with the video, revealing snippets of emotive dance and favourite tricks that have come together for a kind of compilation performance.

There are no big tricks or funky floorwork, just me in my happy place, a bittersweet moment in the process of closing a chapter and preparing for something new.

Thanks for watching!

 

Inspired by Anais Nin – Part 3: Material

September 20, 2016 /

“too great an emphasis on technique arrests naturalness. The material from which I will create comes from living from the personality, from experience, adventures, voyages. This natural flow of riches comes first. The technique is merely a way to organise the flow, to chisel, shape; but without the original flow from deep inner riches of material, everything withers”
The Journals of Anais Nin – Volume Four.

There is so much I love about this quote. Anais Nin is not a dancer, but her words speak to every artist. This is the final post in a three part series that unpacked each of Anais Nin’s ideas and how it relates to artistic expression, including pole dancing.

I think sometimes pole dancers forget to see themselves as artists. We’re told by the media and social memes that we are strong, empowered women. That we are athletes, stronger than our counterparts. We need sass, attitude, and if people don’t listen we’ll just bust out a move and prove them wrong.

Just like other creative endeavours pole dance is a form of expression, in your lounge room or on the stage. Just like a painter, photographer, writer, or singer, a pole dancer is expressing part of themselves. It feels good and that’s why we keep doing it! At the heart of the matter, we are not in it for the likes, nor to show off in the gym when we can do more pull ups than the guys. Our intentions when dancing come from within. We are artists and dancers, and shouldn’t be afraid to take that seriously.

“The material from which I will create comes from living from the personality, from experience, adventures, voyages.”

As I begin to write this post I sit looking at a vista. The lake a calm blanket of blue after a few days of rough winds, the birds chirping and playing in the Spring time sun. It is so quiet, my tapping on the keys seems to interrupt the air in the room. A paradox of time and space, that I finally have time to sit and write, but the space is begging for me to just enjoy the view.
Wangi Wangi

My partner and I are house sitting, a stepping stone on an adventure of a life time. Last month I quit my job and we sold most of our belongings. We have been together for 12 years and although being attached to our routines and habits, and many pieces of furniture and knickknacks, it is time to take stock and see what else the world can bring. Sydney has been great to both of us. I have a strong supportive pole community and space to perform a few times per year. Lee has been able to create an amazing portfolio of photographic work and meet hundreds of inspiring models and artists. But Sydney is also draining our creative energy. The cost and lifestyle sadly no longer contribute to our vision for the future and so it is time to move on.

Anais Nin, the author of the quote above, was a writer. She traveled for a long time with Henry Miller, one of her lovers and a fellow author and artist. She says, “The material from which I will create comes from living from the personality, from experience, adventures, voyages. This natural flow of riches comes first.”

My choreography and performances also emerge from my personality, experiences, adventures and voyages. A few months ago I wrote a playful post using all the titles of the songs I have danced too. It was a humorous reflection on five years of dancing, but it really reminded me of how much each piece was an expression of a moment in my life.

(Remember at the beginning of this series where I said that pole dancers shouldn’t be afraid to take themselves seriously? yeah, that)

In 2012 I was training with Jamilla Deville at the Art of Pole Studios in Sydney. We were preparing for a showcase and I was with just one other student and Jamilla in an open play practice time. After running the combos and reviewing my choreography on my own, Jamilla asked if I would like to dance the whole piece while Donna and her watched. My dance was full of nerves and not very polished but the song offered time for pauses and allowed me to stay inside myself. My final pose was a swan, a kind of pole sit where you lean your torso around the front of the pole, laying over your legs. The music finished and I reconnected with Jamilla and Donna who were smiling and praising my efforts. Before I had even dismounted the pole, Jamilla said, “Thank you for sharing your dance with us” – a statement acknowledging the intimacy of the moment while also acknowledging the exchange – “sharing your dance with us” – sharing a part of me with you.

After Solotude 3, I had a few people ask about my inspiration for my choreography, wondering where my sometimes ‘out of the box’ ideas come from. The answer was simple, but probably deeper than most want to realise. It comes from the same place that Anais Nin talks about.

amelie hermitude duo

I have danced to French composer Yann Tiersen (J’y suis Jamias Alle) pictured left,     choosing the piece after returning from a trip to Paris. Frayed by Hermitude, pictured right, was a routine that came together while I was working through some personal issues, in addition to having torn a hamstring. Pole dance was healing.

Sometimes a piece works in a cathartic way, while other times a dance is simply an unpacking of thoughts about an experience. Next time you are creating a dance piece consider your intentions behind your movement. You may have lost someone recently and that may inspire a whole new way to express your emotional energy. You can find inspiration in new relationships even those as fleeting as a snippet of conversation from waiting in line for coffee. Isadora Duncan used nature, her observations of palm fronds swaying in the wind, inspiring new movement possibilities.

When I choose a song for my choreography I find an artist who has also created something that will compliment or emphasise what I am expressing. The eventual choreography is then an interplay with what I feel I need to convey and how the song already says part or all of it.

“The material from which I will create comes from living…”

And so my partner and I have started a process to keep on living. Moving away from the squeeze of Sydney we are setting off to Cambodia, landing in Phnom Penh at the end of September.

I will still be dancing and writing, but the form it takes will be inspired by our new landscape, friends, adventures, and all the riches of an ancient culture. I have goals to work on my flexibility, hoping the weather will work in my favour to always be warm enough to stretch. I am also open, however, to see what happens! I’ve been working full time now for more than 12 years am excited to stop the snowballing effect of debt and obligations, and open my mind to learning new things.

What will pole dance look like in Cambodia? I’m not sure yet. There are multiple studios in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam which I am excited to be able to drop in to, but it’s an exciting prospect to be able to see what comes up and find new inspiration in another culture, a new lifestyle, and a new community.

ស្នាក់នៅបត់បែន

🙂

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