Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Oh yeah???
(snip)Median annual earnings of salaried dancers were $21,100 in 2002. The middle 50 percent earned between $14,570 and $34,660. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $12,880, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $53,350.(snip)
http://jobbankusa.com/career_employm...wages_pay.html
So next time someone says that crap to you, you can tell them you blow other dancers away with your REAL money! ;);D
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Financial concerns aside, there's no definition of 'dance' or, more broadly, 'art', that stripping doesn't meet.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Dance: "a series of movements which match the speed and rhythm of a piece of music."
Webster doesn't specify whether clothes are involved or not ;)
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
I think it still counts as dance, but about as much as gogo does. So like, untrained, but def. paid, and by all definitions valid!
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
I've always thought of striptease as an art form. If you look at history there have always been erotic dancing. True, way back when many erotic dancers were prostitutes (as were many other professions such as modeling and acting)but still an art form. Besides, what is "real" dancing? if stripping is not, then what about hip hop? or jazz? or tap? how about ballet? what about ballroom?
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
damn right it's not real dancing, it's BETTER!
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kellydancer
I've always thought of striptease as an art form. If you look at history there have always been erotic dancing. True, way back when many erotic dancers were prostitutes (as were many other professions such as modeling and acting)but still an art form. Besides, what is "real" dancing? if stripping is not, then what about hip hop? or jazz? or tap? how about ballet? what about ballroom?
'Actress' and 'prostitute' were usually interchangeable, as well, up until the 19th century or so - and after they started letting women play the female roles, anyway. Interestingly, 'pornography' literally means 'the depiction of prostitutes'. Whom do we think it was that was willing to sit nude for the great masters? You guessed it: our sister demimondaines, our fellow ladies of the evening, the whores. So, most famous nudes are, in fact, pornography. Sexual content has never been a legitimate reason to withhold classification as 'art', except for those too prude and ignorant to hold a valid opinion regarding artistic sensibility.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
eh i wouldnt consider myself a dancer. aside from pole tricks i dont think stage stripping really takes any talent. its not like we've been training for years like ballet or hip hop dancers. i mean our job is very hard (hustling, lapdancing, wearing 8 inchers) but taking off my bra and rubbing my boobs doesnt qualify me for juilliard ;)
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Yeah, I don't tell people that I can dance, although I'm a stripper. What I do isn't "art", per se. I have friends who are strippers and highly-trained dancers and I admire them very much for their discipline. I'm sure they add something to the craft that I don't and it enhances their own performance, making them "exotic dancers". But I just kind of writhe around on the floor, sometimes or climb a pole. I'm not a dancer, by any stretch.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FeministStripper
'Actress' and 'prostitute' were usually interchangeable, as well, up until the 19th century or so - and after they started letting women play the female roles, anyway. Interestingly, 'pornography' literally means 'the depiction of prostitutes'. Whom do we think it was that was willing to sit nude for the great masters? You guessed it: our sister demimondaines, our fellow ladies of the evening, the whores. So, most famous nudes are, in fact, pornography. Sexual content has never been a legitimate reason to withhold classification as 'art', except for those too prude and ignorant to hold a valid opinion regarding artistic sensibility.
Very true. "Proper" women were never actresses, models or dancers. Yep many of the famous painting feature prostitutes. I always find this interesting how mindsets have changed for the better.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kikidejavu
eh i wouldnt consider myself a dancer. aside from pole tricks i dont think stage stripping really takes any talent. its not like we've been training for years like ballet or hip hop dancers. i mean our job is very hard (hustling, lapdancing, wearing 8 inchers) but taking off my bra and rubbing my boobs doesnt qualify me for juilliard ;)
Art is the manipulation of a medium, including your own body, to create some kind of synapse fire - emotion, introspection, arousal. Art evokes. Juilliard is for 'fine art' - but art doesn't have to be 'fine art' to qualify as art. Technically Shakespeare's work wasn't considered 'art' in his time, but entertainment. Advertising is often art. My grandmother would tell you that Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol's work isn't art, but Thomas Kinkade's is. Many people would tell you that pornography can't be art, but it is. Some people are real estate photographers and some are Ansel Adams. I would say that stripping qualifies as both art and craft - for some dancers it's more art, for some it's more of a craft. The sweeping generalization, however, that it's simply not art is incorrect.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
I don't view stripping as art, per se. All it takes to "strip" is to remove something, in this case clothing. Dancing, however, is an art.
My sister thought my being a stripper was something shameful, that it labeled me permanently as a slut who wanted to get naked for strangers. She would chastise me for calling myself a pole dancer, exotic dancer or just a dancer- "why don't you just say stripper?" This past spring though, my boyfriend at the time and I hung out with her boyfriend who had a pole in his living room. Everyone knew I was a stripper, and those who had seen me at work praised me to the point that everyone asked me to do a couple songs. My sister thought I was being silly when I asked to borrow shorts because "they'll just come back off." She was pissy the entire first song because I was dancing in her boyfriend's house and she thought I would be stripping. But when I finished with all my clothes on, she was excited like the other girls to ask how I did it and teach them some basic spins!
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Hehe, so your sister disapproved of stripping and her boyfriend had a pole in his living room...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Naida
I don't view stripping as art, per se. All it takes to "strip" is to remove something, in this case clothing. Dancing, however, is an art.
My sister thought my being a stripper was something shameful, that it labeled me permanently as a slut who wanted to get naked for strangers. She would chastise me for calling myself a pole dancer, exotic dancer or just a dancer- "why don't you just say stripper?" This past spring though, my boyfriend at the time and I hung out with her boyfriend who had a pole in his living room. Everyone knew I was a stripper, and those who had seen me at work praised me to the point that everyone asked me to do a couple songs. My sister thought I was being silly when I asked to borrow shorts because "they'll just come back off." She was pissy the entire first song because I was dancing in her boyfriend's house and she thought I would be stripping. But when I finished with all my clothes on, she was excited like the other girls to ask how I did it and teach them some basic spins!
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Naida
I don't view stripping as art, per se. All it takes to "strip" is to remove something, in this case clothing. Dancing, however, is an art.
That sounds more like 'undressing' to me. 'Striptease' is dance. Performance art.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dianadixon
Hehe, so your sister disapproved of stripping and her boyfriend had a pole in his living room...?
I LOVE people like that!!! More more for us}:D!!!
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
I think it depends on the way it is executed. The idea of a striptease is something I would associate as being 'artistic' but I honestly feel that because there is no criteria required to become a stripper sometimes a stage show, for example, is so poorly executed that the artistic value has been removed.
I think it is similar to tattoos: sometimes they are beautiful and you are blown away by the intricacy and the coloration..and then sometimes you encounter a person with 'SLUT" written accross their back and you just don't know if you should put that in the same category or not... it is 'art' after all but it isn't even comprable to the art that you previously found so impressive.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dianadixon
Hehe, so your sister disapproved of stripping and her boyfriend had a pole in his living room...?
Yeah. I knew a family who lived there maybe a year and a half prior- no pole at that time. I'm under the impression that he installed it before dating my sister though, because she would have pitched a fit! She thought it was an ugly eyesore and encouragement for drunk sluts when they threw parties. Which I guess it was, but she wouldn't have allowed it if they had been datting when he put it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
FeministStripper
That sounds more like 'undressing' to me. 'Striptease' is dance. Performance art.
This is true, and I didn't argue the fact that "striptease" is an art. But we have all seen that stripper who doesn't dance; she just kinda hobbles and feebly attempts to wag her ass while taking off her bra. That is not art. That is an individual stripping on a stage. The "stripper" who comes to the stage and actually presents a portion of her own unique self (through the effort to improve, the dedication to practice, the music she moves to, etc) is a dancer/artist.
Just like the mention of tattoos earlier, it's not a matter of skill or complicated performance. It's seeing a genuine part of one's self being expressed through a medium- in this case our bodies. Even if a tattoo isn't especially pretty or well executed, something about the meaninful pieces of art shows through. Whereas a plain blackline "SLUT" tattoo is a basic mockery of that art.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
As an artist that has been classically trained since the age of five & spent eighty grand on her education -I cannot consider dancing really an art form. I will say that some performances can become more artistic, perhaps, but those usually involve alot more in the lines of burlesque, aerial, or pole (these require training, practice & expertise just as a trade in art does usually). Stripping, dancing, performing, etc.. (that's all just semantics, really, in my opinion) is awesome but I didn't train from young age, go to school to become one, & it pays alot nicer than what art usually does (lol).
Sorry, if my opinion offends anyone -it's just the comparison between the two has always irked me.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brandi_Lynn
As an artist that has been classically trained since the age of five & spent eighty grand on her education -I cannot consider dancing really an art form. I will say that some performances can become more artistic, perhaps, but those usually involve alot more in the lines of burlesque, aerial, or pole (these require training, practice & expertise just as a trade in art does usually). Stripping, dancing, performing, etc.. (that's all just semantics, really, in my opinion) is awesome but I didn't train from young age, go to school to become one, & it pays alot nicer than what art usually does (lol).
Sorry, if my opinion offends anyone -it's just the comparison between the two has always irked me.
It's interesting, the variety of opinions on the matter. My lifelong immersion in the arts has left me with exactly the opposite perspective, and I find it to be the subject of lively discussion among artists whenever it comes up. Just had this same talk at a gallery opening a couple of weeks ago; my husband tends toward your position, while the artist whose work we were viewing falls more toward my side of the argument.
I'm not saying dancing is always art by default; I'm just saying that the position that it's NEVER art, that it CAN'T be art, is equally as unsound. The same is true of pornography, of advertising, of pop music, of literature. There's crap writing everywhere, but literature is still an art form. Bad actors abound, but theatre is still an art. A stripper in fine form is deeply compelling, a thing of grace, discipline, power and beauty.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brandi_Lynn
As an artist that has been classically trained since the age of five & spent eighty grand on her education -I cannot consider dancing really an art form. I will say that some performances can become more artistic, perhaps, but those usually involve alot more in the lines of burlesque, aerial, or pole (these require training, practice & expertise just as a trade in art does usually). Stripping, dancing, performing, etc.. (that's all just semantics, really, in my opinion) is awesome but I didn't train from young age, go to school to become one, & it pays alot nicer than what art usually does (lol).
Sorry, if my opinion offends anyone -it's just the comparison between the two has always irked me.
Those women who just walk on the stage (we've all worked with them)are not artists, but those that incorporate other dance routines to me could be depending on what they do. I studied dance for years so I tried to add various steps to clubs, sometimes it works, sometimes not. Years ago I worked a club where they hired women who truly could dance and not just gyrate. In fact when I started dancing I thought it meant actually dancing.
Re: Exotic Dancing's NOT Real Dancing
Only idiots say strippers don't make real money. It's a legit job...fuck the haters.