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Posts tagged dance

77 notes &

3liza:

i need to talk to you about Stacia Blake, the artist who danced with legendary space metal band Hawkwind between 1971 and 1975.

Hawkwind was pretty cool.  they had Lemmy for a while.  their album In Search of Space is considered one of the genre touchstones, and they’re actually still around and still making music.

but i’m not sure any of that would have gotten them anywhere without Stacia Blake, who absolutely defined their live shows during their formative years.

Blake had absolutely heroic proportions, and at 6’2”, in costumes and makeup (including very early corpse paint) she assembled herself, no one was looking at anything else onstage.  I’ve never seen footage of her dancing, but it was said to be incredible.

She has become a serious inspiration for Black Hole Wizard ever since I stumbled on photos of her in the Hawkwind Last.fm page and started doing research.

Stacia joined the band in 1971; however accounts vary as to how and why she began working with the band. Liner notes to In Search of Spaceindicate that poet and lyricistRobert Calvertrecruited her for live shows; other sources state that she was a friend ofNik Turner, saxophonist and flautist for the band. In 2012, Turner told Mojo Magazine, “I met Stacia for the first time at theIsle of Wight… She said, “Can I dance with you?” and I said, “Yeah, but you must take off all your clothes and paint your body.” She took all her clothes off but unfortunately I didn’t have any body paint. That was like her audition.”[1]In an interview in British music magazine Melody Maker, Stacia herself stated that she attended a show and, inspired by the music, got on stage and performed an impromptu dance to the band’s music. She immediately became an integral part of the live show after joining in 1971.

According to a 1974 interview inPenthouse, Stacia was six feet tall and “happily bisexual”.[2]She regularly augmented her visual impact by performing topless or nude, her body decorated in iridescent or luminescent paint. In a 2007BBC Fourdocumentary,Lemmydescribed her as 6 ft 2 inches tall with a 52 inchbustand abookbinderby trade. The same documentary said that she was working as a petrol pump attendant in Cornwall when she joined the band.[3]

Stacia regarded what she did with the band asinterpretive dance, and was an integral part of the early to mid-1970s Hawkwind show, particularly during theSpace Ritual era. She left Hawkwind in 1975 after touring with them for theWarrior on the Edge of Timealbum. Her departure, along with that of Lemmy (who went on to form Motörhead) and Robert Calvert, signaled the end of an era; though Calvert, after a guest appearance with the band at the Reading festival, decided to rejoin the band full-time towards the end of that year.

Stacia Blake is currently a fine artist working in Ireland.

Filed under nudity 1970s art dance women

156,326 notes &

judgebunnie: bohemianarthouse: danceswithfaeriesunderthemooon: thegoddamazon: lightspeedsound: kinkyturtle: everythingbutharleyquinn: chat-with-quill: ms-doodle-pants: big-poppa-snorlax: bearded-snorlax: I’m really disappointed that this is so over sexualized because pole dancing is really cool okay, so first of all: this example is not “over sexualised” - this is someone who very possibly has never done a day’s worth of stripping in her life performing some moves in a dance studio. She’s very likely to have had a lifetime of dance and gymnastics training behind her and decided to take poledancing classes when it became the new hit craze. She’s learned in a formal class environment. But poledancing was developed by strippers in a stripclub environment. Many of those strippers also had a lot of dance and gymnastics and cheerleader training behind them and they developed pole moves partly as a way to kill time when the club was quiet. They taught each other in an informal setting and innovated and created for themselves. Without getting paid explicitly to do so. Their talent at being able to do things like this has never been recognised. Even though the first pole schools were opened by strippers and taught by strippers, it has now been appropriated by hundreds of people who have never done sex work and who have no respect for sex work, who think it is “sad” that poledancing has a history inextricably entwined with sex work, who only view poledancing as a legitimate artform once it becomes detached from its sex work context despite the fact it was conceived and built in a sex work environment by sex workers. Poledancing is not “overly sexualised”. It IS a sexualised dance/athletic art and rightly so - it belongs to strippers and it is strippers who made it. Its beauty and athleticism and skill doesn’t change because it was used in a sexualised environment to help its practioners make more money (although now it is seen as just for middle-upper class non-sex workers to pay big bucks in a formal class environment to learn to titillate boyfriends and husbands whilst staying appropriately fit!). That’s a part of its history. Sexualised things are not inherently worth less because of their sexual nature. To believe so is just to devalue the hard work of the sex workers who innovated it and that is done more than enough as is. Poledancing is still cool and amazing and requires great skill and talent to execute even MORE SO when it is sexualised. Just being able to perform it impressively is one thing; being able to make it a fluid part of a character performance (which is what stripping entails) is another. If you can’t appreciate that, you don’t understand it, so STFU. this fucking commentary is perfect oh my god, the commentary Flawless commentary. Fabulous commentary. perfect commentary is perfect I’m the girl on the left watching this commentary.

judgebunnie:

bohemianarthouse:

danceswithfaeriesunderthemooon:

thegoddamazon:

lightspeedsound:

kinkyturtle:

everythingbutharleyquinn:

chat-with-quill:

ms-doodle-pants:

big-poppa-snorlax:

bearded-snorlax:

I’m really disappointed that this is so over sexualized because pole dancing is really cool

okay, so first of all: this example is not “over sexualised” - this is someone who very possibly has never done a day’s worth of stripping in her life performing some moves in a dance studio. She’s very likely to have had a lifetime of dance and gymnastics training behind her and decided to take poledancing classes when it became the new hit craze. She’s learned in a formal class environment.

But poledancing was developed by strippers in a stripclub environment. Many of those strippers also had a lot of dance and gymnastics and cheerleader training behind them and they developed pole moves partly as a way to kill time when the club was quiet. They taught each other in an informal setting and innovated and created for themselves. Without getting paid explicitly to do so.

Their talent at being able to do things like this has never been recognised. Even though the first pole schools were opened by strippers and taught by strippers, it has now been appropriated by hundreds of people who have never done sex work and who have no respect for sex work, who think it is “sad” that poledancing has a history inextricably entwined with sex work, who only view poledancing as a legitimate artform once it becomes detached from its sex work context despite the fact it was conceived and built in a sex work environment by sex workers.

Poledancing is not “overly sexualised”. It IS a sexualised dance/athletic art and rightly so - it belongs to strippers and it is strippers who made it. Its beauty and athleticism and skill doesn’t change because it was used in a sexualised environment to help its practioners make more money (although now it is seen as just for middle-upper class non-sex workers to pay big bucks in a formal class environment to learn to titillate boyfriends and husbands whilst staying appropriately fit!). That’s a part of its history. Sexualised things are not inherently worth less because of their sexual nature. To believe so is just to devalue the hard work of the sex workers who innovated it and that is done more than enough as is.

Poledancing is still cool and amazing and requires great skill and talent to execute even MORE SO when it is sexualised. Just being able to perform it impressively is one thing; being able to make it a fluid part of a character performance (which is what stripping entails) is another. If you can’t appreciate that, you don’t understand it, so STFU.

this fucking commentary is perfect

oh my god, the commentary

Flawless commentary.

Fabulous commentary.

perfect commentary is perfect

I’m the girl on the left watching this commentary.

Filed under dance pole dancing feminism ladies awesome

12,030 notes &

leupagus:

itsakattastrophe:

deviouslyratedm:

gc-dc:

nicis125:

He makes pole dancing look so masculine. He’s got some awesome moves

I would stick so many twenties in his G-string.

Why doesn’t he have a spot in Zoomanity?

Um, yeah, can I have one of those please?

ALSO, just throwing out there but if any of ya’ll ever want to go to a nice strip joint - I will totally go with.  Either gender.  I used to work with a gal that stripped nights.  Wasn’t a fan of hers personally for separate reasons…but she did some amazing pole dancing.

Dude I’ll go to a strip joint with you. I’ve always wanted to go!

Filed under dance sports pole dancing