 |
|
|
 Entertainment | August 2006 
Pole-A-Palooza 4 Equals Aerial Acrobatics - and Strippers
 Kevin Capp - lvcitylife.com
| | Talia Gilbert of Massachusetts competes during Pole-A-Palooza, a competition for pole dancers, at the Light nightclub inside the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada August 21, 2006. Gilbert finished second in the annual competition. (Reuters/Steve Marcus) |
Vegas nightclubs have a First World power-like arsenal of gimmicks they use to lure clubbers. There's the special guest DJ blitz, the famous-person-might-show-up assault and the arbitrary (sometimes) anniversary coup. While these aren't always wool-over-the-eyes strategies, there's so many it's hard not to get a wee bit cynical about them.
Except for a party featuring barely clothed women dancing on poles. Even the most devout pessimist can't (or at least shouldn't) maintain a hard outer-shell for that one. Instant dismissals be gone!
Pole-A-Palooza 4, held at Light Aug. 21, attracted some 18 strippers or dancers or whatevers to the Bellagio hotspot, and enough clubbers or spectators or whatevers to cease all orderly movement. The contestants' movement on the ceiling-high pole, however, did have a kind of structure to it - one in which women bent their legs in unnatural directions, contorted their bodies and often used only their thighs to climb to unnatural heights for a shot at winning $10,000.
Winner Kristal (whose day - or is it night? - job is at Club Paradise) says, for her, it's all about having fun - pre-planning be damned. "I don't practice. I don't get a routine together. It's all on adrenaline," says the native Las Vegan.
As for the money she won, well, Kristal says she plans on investing it. What? No student loan debt to pay off?
If contestant Jenyne Wilson had won, she would've paid off the money she still owes on her now defunct gym/pole/dance studio in Seattle - but it wasn't meant to be. Wilson isn't a stripper, and views pole-dancing as a means to stay in shape and practice for a possible run as professional aerial artist.
"It's really exhilarating," she says of pole-dancing. "It gives you ... a rush."
You and us both. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us