showcase – Page 2 – Mel Nutter as Baudelaire

Big hair, big heels – Solotude 2!

November 2, 2015 / mel

Last night was Solotude 2, an event created by the lovely team at Sydney Pole to offer a Showcase performance environment for upcoming and recognised pole dance artists.

The line up was amazing! Penelope Pitbull, Porsche, Blue Phoenix, Bailey Hart, Elle Lacroix, Ebony and Oryx! To share the stage with these fabulous performers, and chat backstage with their humble selves was incredible!

So pleased with my routine too! First time dancing in heels for some time, but managed not to stack it, and even danced with my hair out – in all it’s long goldilocks glory!

The feedback was amazing, particularly about my hair! Cannot wait to see the shots from The Black Light, but for now here is a backstage shot for #sundaybumday!

On such a performance high!

Solotude 2!

September 15, 2015 / mel

Here we go again! Riding the success of the first Solotude in June, the awesome girls at Sydney Pole are running the showcase event once more!

To celebrate having my caboose on the poster twice, I’ve got a sexy routine in the works that’s all about big heels, hair flicks, and being a woman!

(and it’s a great distraction from comp prep!)

Feel it, before you try and say it

August 23, 2015 / mel

As much as training for a showcase is fun, or prepping for a comp makes you incredibly motivated to smash your pole goals, sometimes I just like to turn the lights down and dance.

I have a pole playlist on my Spotify account that I return to again and again. A list of songs that I can put on and just flow. Some are fast, hip hop beats, others are slower, melodic, and sometimes instrumental. All of them ring true in someway, and reach a place in me, no matter how many times I hear them.

Last night I taped my freestyle, but didn’t really have any expectations that I’d be able to share anything from it worthwhile.

But then I really surprised myself.

Watching back, I saw a fluidity and grace that is often missing from my choreographed routines. A flow and sense of movement that comes from just being with the song.

There were no big tricks, I don’t even think I inverted. Just spins and floorwork that became amazingly cathartic and gave insight into how emotions could be represented in my dancing.

The pressures of a competition or performance night can shroud the flow and grace that comes from just moving and dancing.

Perhaps a way to overcome this is to freestyle to a piece of music for a while before laying down the chorey. To feel it before you try and say it.

Something to ponder.

Solotude Performance

July 4, 2015 / mel

Last weekend was a blast! Here’s a shot of me backstage after the show, on a high and in love with the magic of performing!

I’ve been getting great feedback about my routine, which is so motivating. As I mentioned in the last post, I capitalised on the showcase allowing me to pare back tricks and tell a story, and it seems the audience appreciated that too.

Check out my performance below. Excuse the slight slip up in the middle, it seems I truly was an old lady losing her balance!

Credits:
Music by Yu and Count Basie
Lingerie by Dita Von Teese
Night Gown and Props: local op shop find!

Enjoy!

Solotude!

June 23, 2015 / mel

When you train at a studio with a high caliber of experienced dancers, and two of those dancers are also skilled in event management, what happens? Solotude happens!

I’ve been training hard these past few weeks, adding the finishing touches to my performances and collecting props and costumes. The vibe at the studio is amazing as everyone is nailing their tricks with extra motivation to get their choreography solid for the show.

I have already written about the benefits of entering showcases, so I’d like to use this post to talk about how I put together my performance (and to plug the show for all my Sydney readers!).

Being a showcase, there is no pressure to put in all the best strength and flex tricks into the routine as you would in a competition. There is space to tell a story, pare back the tricks and emphasise the aspects of making it a show.

Over the years, I have worked hard on my stage presence and engaging with the audience. With each new routine I try to choreograph gestures, facial expressions, and points to connect with the audience. It’s hard, and daunting, but it has helped me improve.

The routine I have started for Solotude begins with me talking to the audience. I found a clip from the end of a Yu song of an elderly woman with a thick Boston drawl reminiscing over old photographs. In my 50s lace night gown, hair in rollers, and reading glasses dangling off my ears with a gold chain, I mime the lady’s story and share the photographs with the audience.

As the music starts, Count Basie fills the stage with burlesque class and I am drawn to relive my days as a younger dancer.

The props and costume for this routine were as vital in telling the story as the pole tricks and poses. I also had to think about how the older woman would have danced, did she break free of her nightgown and reveal a sexy lingerie set highlighting body rolls and hair flicks? Or did she emerge from her gown slowly, like the unfurling of a memory, only to be completely immersed in her recollection at the end of the song?

Thinking this way made sense for me. I didn’t want to just separate the two parts of looking through the photographs and then dancing. They had to transition and be threaded together. It’s a story, it has emotion and feeling, not just a sequence of tricks.

A picture tells a 1000 words, and this will make more sense with a video. I’ll post it up after the show, but if you’re in Sydney and keen on seeing some Pole Drama next weekend, come on by to The Vanguard!

Oh! And guess who’s derriere is on the poster?!? *wink*

Showcase!

June 7, 2015 / mel

Four years ago (when this photo was taken!) when I walked into Art of Pole studios on Parramatta Rd, I would have never anticipated pole dancing would have affected me the way it has. I didn’t even know who Jamilla Deville was, but as soon as I saw her spinning and twirling with such grace and strength, I felt it shake something up inside of me.

Despite the Art of Pole studios being rather small – a single room, 50mm static brass poles, wooden floors, and an outdoor toilet! – Jamilla and her team were keen to run studio showcase events. They valued the idea of offering students a safe and supportive place to dance.

This ethos has been threaded through the studio as it has changed locations and changed hands. The owners, teachers, and students all recognising that showcase is a chance to foster aspiring dancers and offer a space for performance that is not a competition or paid gig. It’s a space for you to get up on stage, dance your way, to your music, in your style.

Daunting? Yes!

Hard work? Yes!

Worth it! Hell YES!

My first showcase was at the Vanguard Theatre in Sydney’s Inner West. I danced to Numb by Portishead, and my biggest trick was an Ankle Grab (AKA Bat). Could I have placed in a comp with that routine? No way! But in the showcase environment, it was more than welcome, a sign of the studio’s acceptance and interest in hearing a new voice.

I’ve clocked up over fifteen solos since, all performed in the container of security and support that is my studio. I now have many more tricks than a straddle to an ankle grab, but the essence of that dance is still woven into my new routines. In that first performance I learned about choreography, interpreting music, conveying messages with my body, stage presence, facial expressions, costume, hair, make up … the list goes on! And the stage, lighting, backstage energy, sense of community, I was hooked!

A fortnight ago was our most recent showcase at Sydney Pole. I was invited to dance as part of a small group in what was aptly named the “Proposal Dance”. A friend surprised her pole dancing partner with a “Will You Marry Me” dance! We choreographed a short routine and then brought Kat on stage for her surprise. It was magic! And it highlights the whole showcase concept – it’s about community, acceptance, support, and openness.

My pole journey started with a showcase performance. Every time I get on stage I learn something more about myself, and more about dancing. I am so grateful for the studios who offer this as part of their program and highly recommend you get yourself into one! Or at least come along to watch at Sydney Pole sometime, I’m sure you’ll get hooked too!

Oh, and yes, she said “yes!”

Mel Nutter as Baudelaire

Aerialist

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