I used to take pole choreography classes, in 7-inch stiletto heels, every week. This was before I got a home pole, so I traveled to a Berkeley studio each Friday afternoon to dance with students who didn’t work traditional 9-5 jobs. Occasionally, we’d set the poles to spin (the poles can spin or remain still, depending on their setting) and, on a spinning pole day, I suggested we dance to Dessa’s “Velodrome.” Dessa sings,
How many angels on the
Head of your pin?
Anybody in stilettos can
Answer that old thing:
It's one for the right foot, one for the left
Half an angel per pin at best
Add wings, add heart
Add harp, all set
We lean to turn in the velodrome
All lines are curved in the velodrome
We pitch and roll, wheels
Flesh and bone
Total control and it's
It's ours alone…
I saw Dessa perform live a couple times. The last time was with my ex, and I was—in part—taking these stiletto classes to recover from our breakup. The loss of love guided my dancing. I was getting back in touch with my heart through my body.
These days, I rarely set my home pole to static (to not spin). It’s taken years to learn how to work with, rather than against, the centrifugal force. How to lean in the velodrome, as it were. The more extended your body is, in a position like a split, the slower you will spin. Drawing in appendages closer to the pole will speed up a spin.
I’m more likely to lose my spin before I’ve finished a pass (an aerial combination or sequence of shapes) if I spin counterclockwise. I generally gravitate toward spinning clockwise, especially when climbing. But some entrances to a pass, like a backwards-spinning invert (where your first move is to flip upside down, ass over head), require a counterclockwise spin.
I recently read in Robert Ferris Thompson’s book Tango: the Art History of Love that “Tango couples circle the dance floor counterclockwise. No one knows why, so they allege.” He goes on to make a point that this rotational direction comes from the roots of tango—a dance called the candombe. This is a deep dive into the African roots of tango.
My early impressions of tango predate this book, however. In Moulin Rouge, a favorite movie of mine as a teen, tango is associated with sex work in their interpretation of “Roxanne.” Sex work can be described as widdershins (counterclockwise, or against the sun’s path), as it runs ideologically counter to 9-5 jobs. Sex work also runs chronologically against the sun’s path in that it is frequently practiced at night.
Pole dance has a clearer association with sex work than tango because pole dance was invented by strippers. This is not up for debate—I will not tolerate the whorephobic arguments against this truth. I’ve heard them; they’re weak and poorly supported. The people who try to disassociate stripping from pole dance are denying the countercultural history of the dance. The “not a stripper” fitness enthusiasts can be compared to the people Thompson argues against in his Tango book—the people who try to deny the African roots of tango.
The pagan terms widdershins and deosil (counterclockwise and clockwise) refer to casting a magical circle. The space in which I spin around the pole, in a studio or at home, is a sacred and sexual space. “Add wings, add heart, add harp, all set.”