She sees pole dancing as a challenge demanding flexibility, strength, self-confidence, style, and experience. Leung said she started getting stronger, very quickly, not just physically but mentally. class which I thought nobody would join because everybody would still be at work, but they came anyway.” “By the end of 2012, we had around 60 students at my first studio in Lai Chi Kok, but (there was) no more space for new students, so I decided to open (a new) one in Kwun Tong and it only took a few months to fill that space (too),” Melody said. Melody Rose, the founder of Melody Pole Studio, says about 500 students are pole dancing at her two studios - 90 percent of them from Hong Kong. In the five years since she opened her Sheung Wan studio, Dolai said about 1,800 students had come through her door. She was one of the judges for Miss Pole Dance Hong Kong this year. Pole dancing is a complete body workout, practically head to toe,” said Symone Dolai, founder of Pole Paradise Studio in Hong Kong. “People come because they want to stay fit but also to have fun. It’s populated by young women like Leung who got bored doing routine exercises at the gym and wanted something different. There’s a pretty big pole dance community here and it’s growing.
Pole dance can be combined with different styles, like hip pole, tango and ballet. Ten finalists were chosen for Miss Pole Dance Hong Kong, 2014, from among several aspiring competitors who submitted online auditions. Pole dance competitions go on all year round in Hong Kong. I don’t have to work overtime, so I can have more time for pole dancing,” Leung said with a wry smile. “One reason I took my job is that I can get off on time. She goes to the studio twice a week for classes.
It’s beautiful and it makes you stronger and more flexible,” Leung said. Leung, 25, who works in an office in Tsim Sha Tsui, took up pole dancing two years ago. It’s Leung’s debut in a hotly competitive field, vying for the crowning achievement to become Miss Pole Dance Hong Kong, 2014. “Shining like stars, ‘cause we’re beautiful,” reverberates the song lyrics. The crowd applauds wildly, and up steps Kimberly Leung in her sports bra and shorts, advancing, lithe as a cat, on the perpendicular pole where all eyes are fixed and there, taking firm grip, she rises aloft to commence orbiting the pole, crescent-moon like. The response to the annual Miss Pole Dance Hong Kong event underlines its popularity. She has never had that limb, or hands, and so she does everything with what she has.”Īnd, he might have added, she did it without any help from Harry Potter’s wand.Pole dancing is fast gaining recognition as a sport in the city. She wants to achieve certain goals,” said her father Marco Cesarini, 57. (REUTERS/Yara Nardi)įrancesca is a girl who knows what she wants. “She still doesn’t want them,” said her mother Valeria Mencaroni, 47.” Francesca Cesarini practices pole dancing at home while her mother Valeria Mencaroni, 47, watches. She has one prosthetic leg, but when he she was about eight years old she decided to stop using artificial forearms because she found them inhibiting.
“There are some difficult elements (like) when you have to contort yourself or maybe you have to hold on with just an arm, a leg, or a foot. (REUTERS/Yara Nardi)Īt a recent training session, as she hung upside down and twirled, Imbrogno told her to try it again but with her head just a bit straighter. Francesca Cesarini, 15, poses with the gold medal she won in the disability category at the the Virtual International Pole Sports Federation World Pole and Aerial Championship 2021, in Magione, near Perugia, Italy. “It makes me feel free,” she said in her family’s apartment near Perugia in central Italy, where she practices at home and trains with her coach Elena Imbrogno in a local gym. She likes to go to McDonalds, sings the latest pop song while walking with her best friend, and loves all things Harry Potter.īut she chose an increasingly popular sport that anyone would find difficult. Like many girls her age, Francesca wears braces on her teeth and a black plastic choker necklace. She was the only athlete to compete in the disability category and was awarded the gold medal. (REUTERS/Yara Nardi)īecause of the COVID-19 pandemic, pole dancers from around the world submitted videos of their performances and were judged virtually. Cesarini was born with no hands and with only one leg but she chose an increasingly popular sport that anyone would find difficult, she wanted to be an acrobatic pole dancer.