Pole Art

Pole art treats the pole as scenography for a piece rather than as an apparatus to be scored. The category name entered international competition through the International Pole Championship, founded by Ania Przeplasko and first held in Manila in 2008, which split entries into Pole Fit for technical difficulty and Pole Art for theme interpretation, originality and choreography. A distinct International Pole Art Competition ran in parallel from 2009, and the Finnish athlete Oona Kivela won both it and, later, four consecutive International Pole Championship titles from 2012 to 2015, making her the most visible figure of the idiom's early competitive era. Australia's Felix Cane took World Pole Dance Championship titles in 2009 and 2010 before performing pole in Cirque du Soleil productions, a route that established pole art as viable professional theatre rather than only a competition format. Contemporary pole art routines commit to character and narrative: costume, props, lighting and silence are all in play, and a held shape may be the point rather than the transition. Pole Art Italy, staged in a proscenium theatre, remains the idiom's flagship event.