Researcher ORCID Identifier
0000-0001-7092-9577
Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
American Studies
Second Department
Dance
Reader 1
Kevin Williamson
Reader 2
Martha Gonzalez
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2022 Cameron H Boucher-Khan
Abstract
This project seeks to explore the relationships between pole dance and pole fitness, art and obscenity and respectability as it relates to work, class, and social systems. It analyzes the way female sexuality is accepted or rejected within society and explores the boundaries between the two through the staging of pole and contemporary dance. The dichotomy between art and obscenity is explored in the relationship between stripper pole dance, and the fast-growing pole fitness community. Within this relationship, strippers are demonized as obscene, while pole fitness dancers' labor is viewed as artistic, despite the sexuality present in both. The difference between the two lies in the commodification of sexuality, which reveals a classist approach to determining good and bad. The research done in this project was used to create a dance piece to be performed at Scripps Dances 2022 that sought to reveal contradictory ways in which sexuality is praised and vilified, and explore where the line between the two is drawn.
Recommended Citation
Boucher-Khan, Cameron, "Choreographing the Line: Exploring The Art/Obscenity Paradox of Feminine Sexuality Within the Context of Recreational Pole Dance" (2022). Scripps Senior Theses. 1863.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1863
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Dance Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Performance Studies Commons
