Beyond the pole: The real lives of pole dancers

VANESSA with her husband and his brothers

It was considered adult entertainment, something strippers do late at night in bars. Now, pole dancing is becoming more acceptable: An increasingly popular form of fi tness, a way to spend leisure time, a performing art and a sport with a chance to even become an Olympic discipline. Numerous competitions are organised throughout the world to create opportunities for professionals to showcase their skills. This transition, however, is still evolutionary: The connections between pole dance and its sensual roots remain prominent and continue to create tension and negativity, especially within families. In these images, award-winning photographer Tomasz Gudzowaty juxtaposes the normalcy of family against the exotic nature of this dance form. Born in 1971 in Warsaw, he takes a keen interest in humanistic photography and the classic form of the blackand- white photo-essay. In recent years, he has been focussing on non-commercial sports; also those sports that are exotic, atypical or somehow outside the mainstream