Poles and the Public

Hey guys,

That last post about Improv Everywhere and taking yearbook photos on the subway, reminded me about this video that came up on my Facebook newsfeed a while back. It tackles issues of social stigmatisation, in regards to male and female dancers, and improv in a pubic space, reaction of, and interaction with the public. I remember I brought up this subject in the Politics of Vision class last term, where we looking at how gender roles are defined within society. I made the point that dancing is just dancing, regardless who does what, its an expression or solely exercise - and that I would not react differently to males or females dancing if it is the same type of dancing. This might be because I'm coming from a dance background. Others can easily relate dancing with objects, i.e. a pole, to females, due to social stigmatisation of strip clubs, for example. This brings up matters of concern and debate in terms of thinking "How seductive can one perform with a pole (for ex.) until it becomes socially stigmatised, and people want to throw money at you".  When thinking of the objects around us and making use of these in our acts of expression, I view the pole as a structure aimed for exercise or performance art - this on my part might be due to my background of working for a circus, in which all kinds of materials and structures and the pole, "Chinese Pole", are used for practise and incredible performance art.

Make sure you watch the AUDIENCE as well as the performers!!

Please have a look here at some (male) dancers using the poles on the subway in part of their performance:

And more cos it's just that cool:

(These guys actually go around to collect money and are quite successful with the donations they receive)

Women doing "pole fitness" on the tube:

Here is  video of a females who are actually a stripper using the pole in the tube for an impromptu sess :(

This is quite cringe-worthy but I think it's a good example to show how the public reacts on levels of such sleaziness and agreeably cheap demonstration what could have been a more "classy"/professional/clean approach to the actual profession of stripping or the desire or taking off ones clothes on the tube. You can see the audience is a lot more engaging now ... WHY THO?
Before I go on too much of a tangent -

Here I think it is important to look at the reaction of the people on the tube depending on gender of the performer and the style of dancing. Here is a picture of acrobats performing in the circus show using the Chinese Pole:

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?safe=off&sa=X&espvd=210&es_sm=91&biw=1124&bih=682&tbm=isch&tbnid=iDNHggM57IMhCM%3A&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sternbergclarke.co.uk%2Facts%2Fchinese-poles&docid=ddoOyDoUdU01SM&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sternbergclarke.co.uk%2Fimages%2F383.jpg&w=605&h=514&ei=EEwwU9iGAoaI7Aa3oIGoBg&zoom=1&ved=0CF0QhBwwAg&iact=rc&dur=984&page=1&start=0&ndsp=15


What do you feel about this? O_O


I think doing out interventions in a space like the tube is a perfect environment regardless of what we choose to do. This modern form of transport alienates our human nature from contact with each other, and in the most unnatural way possible, and humans collectively comply. This might be to the tight spaces available and privacy around ourselves is still a privilege and up to us who we let in, which is why I think it is interesting to look at how people would reacted when the are 1. forced to interact with each other (in tight spaces like the t) and 2. what drives them to voluntarily participate. Behaviour behaviour! So interesting as to what has been controlled and what drives people to act in the way they do. It differs from being alone, to being in a group of people you know, and being alone in a group of strange people, as well.

This is why I thought it would be interesting to look at the behavioural actions of the public when we do our interventions. There's a difference about interacting ourselves, and in the videos, the performers, with the public observers, and to have the willingness to cause commotion or attract attention. So we could 1. attract attention (for ex. with music) or 2. be sly and let everything run its course.

/// I think we can agree that we need to take people out of their comfort zone ///

And we should definately record it ! I'm gonna stop now cos I'm getting carried away with these videos and the pillar in the library looks a little too inviting for me to try out some of these dope moves (in the first couple vids mind you). If evidence pops up it could be title as "Student fails miserably at using pillar for pole, breaks leg and loses dignity in process"

Peace x