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Ministry wins lawsuit against strip club

Monday, July 27th, 2009

An Ohio pastor has won a lawsuit filed by an adult entertainment club against him and part of his congregation.

Several years ago, Pastor William Dunfee of New Beginnings Ministries in New Castle started demonstrating in front of the “Foxhole” strip club. City attorney Tom Condit represented the church.

“They had signs and they would try to persuade men to not patronize the place. They would try to persuade the girls who danced there not to work there,” he notes, “and they just did the best they could to ideally shut the place down — make it go out of business.”

The protestors took photos of license plates of vehicles whose owners went into the facility and then posted them on the ministry’s website. In response, the club sued the ministry members and the sheriff’s department for not getting rid of the protesters.

“It was actually set for trial in mid-July, and the federal judge saw the evidence that was submitted in writing and said there is no federal claim here, and he threw the case out,” Condit adds.

Condit points out people have a constitutional right to conduct peaceful protests

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Las Vegas Strip Club Bust Results in 13 Arrests

Monday, July 27th, 2009

A major bust at a local adult strip club has resulted in 13 dancers being arrested for soliciting prostitution. Police allege the dancers were doing much more than dancing.

Metro made the arrests early Monday morning. Police say busts like this, are not uncommon, but the number of arrests is what makes this one stand out.

“It’s a pretty substantial. I don’t know how many particular entertainers were working in that establishment that night but 13 is a lot of folks,” said Lieutenant Karen Hughes, Metro.

All of the female dancers were arrested for soliciting prostitution. Police say it is now up to them to post bail or wait 48 hours to make a court appearance and be released.

Hughes works with Metro’s vice squad, and would not go into detail about how the arrests were made, but says this is part of her team’s job.

“They’re out there every night, working street operations, hotel operations, book stores, anywhere where people that come to Las Vegas are going to go to find something that’s just off the radar.”

Right now, Metro says Deja Vu management is not facing any charges.

“They will check to make sure there are not any key employees who are involved in those acts, because if that’s the case, then the license will be in jeopardy.”

Deja Vu’s General Manager Bob Proden says this is the first time a bust of this size has happened in the club’s 15 year history. He says the club has received dance code violations in the past but those were eventually dropped.

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Heidi Montag to Strip for 25,000

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Heidi Montag to Strip for 25,000
The offers just keep rolling in for The Hills star Heidi Montag: first it was a difficult time in the jungle for I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here which saw her emotions stripped bare, then a deal to strip her clothes to appear in Playboy and now NYC strip club Scores, recently relaunched as a “night club” has offered Mrs. Pratt the opportunity to strip onstage for five nights for $25,000.

“Since Montag recently agreed to pose for Playboy, SCORES figured the publicity-hungry starlet would jump at the opportunity to be center stage at one of New York’s most entertaining nightclubs,” the club says in a press release. Her hubby Spencer Pratt will get a front row seat as well to witness her show, if she chooses to accept the offer.

The club issued a letter to Heidi with their generous offer, via their general manager, Ed Norwick:

“Dear Mrs. Heidi Pratt,

As the nation watched you and your husband brave the jungle on “’’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here’ and continue to brave the ups and downs of ‘The Hills’ and Lauren Conrad, we would like to take this time to present you with an opportunity that will allow you to be center stage—and have a lot of fun while doing so,” the letter reads.

After tooting their own strip club horn, the club adds, “As we took note that you will be posing in Playboy soon, we thought you may be interested in dabbling in yet another adventure that will most definitely expose your softer side.

As we recently re-opened after a short hiatus, SCORES would be honored to have you dance at our club on the main stage each night for five days, upon which, we will offer you a fee of $25,000.

Best,
Ed Norwick”

Your move, Heidi.

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Go-Go Joint is gone-gone

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Oct 25, 2006

Vargas, who owns Lenny’s Deli on Triangle Street, recently bought the Go-Go property from Vincent Mavilia and plans to sign an agreement with the city not to have topless entertainment, although zoning allows it.
On Tuesday, Vargas met with the Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team at the former club to give an overview of her plans for the 1,200-square-foot building.
She plans to remove the circular bar, which still has full bottles of beer and half-full bottles of hard liquor, and renovate the interior to include a small stage for live music.
Vargas doesn’t plan to serve a full menu of food but will serve appetizers, liquor and other beverages. She also plans to add a patio and a plasma television.
“I want to bring in a mariachi band and maybe some jazz,” Vargas said.
City officials have received complaints for at least two years about the Go-Go Joint, which was previously known as Bada Bing and Wiggles.

In March, a judge ordered Mavilia to install a video surveillance system so police could monitor activity inside the Shelter Rock Road strip club.
Judge Douglas Mintz required the cameras about a year after local police and personnel from the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney shut down the club under the state’s nuisance abatement law.
Police arrested six women in August 2005 who were charged with prostitution for offering to have sex with undercover officers for money.
Another dancer was charged with prostitution in February after asking an undercover officer for money in exchange for sex.
According to the city, Mavilia never installed the cameras. He put the building up for sale.
A sign outside the building says the property is for sale for $375,000, cash only. Vargas would not say whether she paid cash.
“You are doing us a favor. This is a very positive thing for the city,” Rich Antous, a member of the city’s Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team, told Vargas on Tuesday.
City officials plan to help Vargas get the necessary permits to get the new café up and running. Vargas said she hopes to have it open by December.
“I am just really pleased that we have been able to resolve this neighborhood issue, and I wish her the best of luck with her business,” Mayor Mark Boughton said Tuesday.

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Strip clubs vow to fight Burl. City restrictions

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Attorney Daniel R. Aaronson said the ordinance is an attempt by the city to put the strip clubs out of business. He said the ordinance violates the First Amendment and will not stand up in court.
At a City Council meeting last night at which a vote was originally scheduled, Aaronson said the strip clubs will sue the city if the ordinance is approved.
“This is not a threat,” he said. “It is a fact. It is a promise … We will fight back.”
The council postponed the vote on the ordinance from last night until next month, but several council members voiced their support for it.
The ordinance was proposed by the Police Department. Detective Joseph Caruso last night explained to the council why the department believes the ordinance is necessary.
“There is more crime at sexually oriented businesses than any other business in Burlington City,” he said.
Caruso said police responded to 164 calls to one sexually oriented business in the past two years. He said those calls include sexual assault, aggravated assault, carjacking and robbery.
Caruso said police have cited many people for urinating in public outside the strip clubs, and have been called to one club after members of the Crips gang were spotted there.
He said an investigation of a go-go bar in August found evidence of prostitution, drug use and drug dealing. In another investigation in September, Caruso said two dancers solicited undercover police officers for sex. He said the dancers offered to have sex with the men in private dance rooms.
Lawyers for the two strip clubs in the city, Club Risque and the Playhouse, deny that strip clubs increase crime, and said they are prepared to fight the ordinance.
Aaronson, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was hired by both clubs. He told the council that strip clubs do not reduce the value of neighboring properties, and in some cases actually increase property values.
He denied that strip clubs cause blight or spread sexually transmitted diseases.
He said the city will spend at least $250,000 in legal fees to fight a lawsuit. He urged the council to table the ordinance and talk with the strip club owners to reach a compromise.

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The Playhouse hired a second attorney, Patricia Ronayne of Mount Laurel. Ronayne told the council that the Playhouse has been a part of Burlington City since 1988.
“They have not been a burden on this community,” she said. “They have not been a problem.”
She said the city does not have the right to tell the strip clubs how to decorate their businesses, such as restricting lighting or private booths.
“This is a fight we are confident we will win in Superior Court,” she said. “This is going to be struck down …”
“This ordinance violates the First Amendment. Nude dancing is a protected right, whether we like it or not.”
City attorney Anthony Val-enti changed some wording in the ordinance at last night’s meeting. Valenti recommended the city readvertise the ordinance before a final vote. The council scheduled that vote for its next meeting Nov. 9.
Several council members spoke in support of the ordinance. Councilman Edward Canivan said the city is not trying to put strip clubs out of business, but instead is asking them to “conduct their business out in the open.”
Canivan said the city must regain control of sexually oriented businesses. “We are here to provide a quality of life and safety for our residents,” he said.
Councilwoman Helen Hatala said she will vote in favor of the ordinance. “I feel that this ordinance is long overdue,” she said.
Some residents urged the council to approve the ordinance. One resident, a neighbor of a strip club, said she has seen people urinating outside the club and her grandchildren find used condoms on the ground.
There are six sexually oriented businesses in Burlington City, police have said.
The ordinance would require all of them to do away with private viewing rooms or dance rooms, and would permit police to inspect at any time during operating hours. The ordinance would require each business to obtain a city-issued license and pay an annual $1,000 fee.

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Detroit Adult Clubs, Gentleman’s Clubs and Strip Clubs

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Detroit strip clubs have their own intrinsic Motown mojo and range from casual Detroit strip clubs to posh, cigar and brandy lounges and from just topless Detroit gentleman’s clubs to fully nude Detroit strip bars. A classic Detroit gentlemen’s club, Detroit’s Coliseum strip bar has a dress code (collared shirts, please), simply gorgeous half naked women, and prices to reflect its status as one of Detroit’s best gentleman’s clubs. For a hearty, no holds barred Detroit strip bar, downtown Detroit’s Bouzouki Club is an ideal club complete with beautiful dancers and fast drinks. Want to take it all off? Detroit’s Club Le Elegant spotlights fully nude strippers, but does not sell liquor—all those roving, admiring eyes just might lose control.

Booby Trap
141 W. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.366.9030

The Booby Trap is a small, casual strip club that has the feel of an old neighborhood pub, except at your Dad’s old watering hole there weren’t dozens of topless babes. Okay, maybe there were, but that doesn’t change the fact that if you’re looking for a more intimate strip club, with decent drinks and good looking women, then the Booby Trap is it.

Bouzouki Club
432 E. Lafayette, Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.964.5744

Located right in Downtown Detroit, Bouzouki Club is everything you could possibly want in a strip club. The dancers are gorgeous and very personable, the drinks arrive quick and there’s plenty of them, and the whole atmosphere of this strip club screams a good night out.

Centerfold Lounge
20222 John R St., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.892.7333

Centerfold Lounge is your typical Detroit strip club with a wide range of ladies to fit everyone’s taste ensuring a good time for all. Hey, a word to the cost conscious, the private dances here are about five bucks cheaper than at most strip clubs, just don’t skimp on the tip.

Chateau Vert Lounge
16550 Telegraph Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.532.2242

At best, Chateau Vert Lounge is hit or miss, and although they don’t have the typical slew of Barbies that most strip clubs offer, the girls are cute and friendly. However, this strip club is small making the private dances not so private. so, we guess if you’re doing the Detroit strip club tour, stop in; if you have limited time and budget, skip it.

Club Le Elegant
17040 Plymouth, Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.836.7562

In Detroit, as in most major cities, no clothes means no booze, a shame for fully nude strip clubs. However, at Club Le Elegant the prices aren’t bad and the girls are decent. You can always get your drink someplace else and stop by, but we prefer to kill two birds with one stone. Besides, other Detroit strip clubs are topless, it won’t overtax your imagination to picture the girls bottomless too.

Coliseum
11300 E. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.308.4116

The Coliseum is an above average gentleman’s club across the board, if a little pricey. It’s seriously state of the art, they have premium liquor, and the women are hot from the strippers right through to the service staff. It’s a casual strip club (the only dress code is a collared shirt) and even the bouncers are chill, a definite rarity at most strip clubs. Like we said though, bring extra cash, all this doesn’t come for free.

Cover Girls
10631 Whittier, Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.527.0700

You have to love a strip club with a free buffet and, if they’re still doing it, dollar pitchers on Sundays. Cover Girls has beautiful women, good drinks and your typical strip club atmosphere. Oh, and if you’re nearby on a Tuesday you have to drop in, Cover Girls host the best amateur night in the state.

Crazy Horse Detroit
8140 Michigan Ave., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.581.7400

What can you say about the Crazy Horse Detroit? Well, we can say plenty, but most of it probably wouldn’t be printed here. However, we will say that this adult club is top notch, with beautiful live nude dancers and reasonably priced booze and, hey, you have to love a gentleman’s club that opens early during baseball season.

Hard Body Cafe
7443 Michigan Ave., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.841.2225

The Hard Body Cafe Detroit is a no-frills adult club, meaning there’s no food to interfere with the live entertainment and consumption of libations. Come on, do you really go to strip clubs for the food? In case you’re stumped, the answer is no.

Hot Tamales
13109 W. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.863.3444

When you’re looking for strip clubs in Detroit, a huge red flag should go up when you contemplate Hot Tamales because nothing else will. Seriously, this strip club needs some major work. The drinks are okay, but if the best thing you can say about a strip club is that the drinks are okay, there is something wrong. We would liken this to an old strippers home, if there were such a thing.

La Chambre Lounge
14100 Telegraph, Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.537.5420

We have it on good authority that La Chambre Lounge is one of Detroit’s best strip clubs. An unpretentious adult club, La Chambre is kicked back, casual and always a good time. The ladies are decent, the liquor is cheaper than most clubs, and the pricing structure for cover charge and lap dances beats out any other gentleman’s clubs.

Platinum
14541 W. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.342.7944

Easily one of the best strip clubs in Detroit, Platinum has simply gorgeous women,almost all of them black, a sick DJ that helps them shake their natural assets, and a liquor selection that shames most other strip clubs. The atmosphere is totally kicked back, comfortable, and the service from the staff is impeccable.

Player’s Lounge
13710 E. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.371.6970

The Player’s Lounge redefines the term “gentleman’s club.” It’s a very upscale venue, serving fine cuisine, a well rounded wine list, a fine selection of cigars, and reasonably priced drinks. Oh, yeah, they also have some of Detroit’s hottest women dancing live for your viewing pleasure. Not a rowdy strip club by any stretch of the imagination, so leave your adolescent inner self at home.

Silk Stockings
15569 W. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.864.3838

Silk Stockings is among a handful of fully nude strip clubs in Detroit, which in layman’s terms means no booze. But, the women are fine and the pricing is comparable to other adult clubs and, hey, they’re fully nude. Drink someplace else.

Subi’s Place
12916 Northline, Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.283.2050

Subi’s Place has been catering to Detroit’s adult club needs since 1971, so you know with a running history like that it has to be good. Some of the hottest girls of any strip club we’ve seen and, oh what variety, it’s like being a kid in some adult candy store. The drinks flows freely and they also offer lunch and dinner, but we believe that after you see the ladies, food will be the last thing on your mind.

Toy Chest
18728 Ford Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.593.1645

We’d say that the Toy Chest is probably the most fun strip club in Detroit. You’re encouraged to let a little of you’re wild side out which separates the Toy Chest from most other gentleman’s clubs, we mean you still have to respect the rules of the road, as it were, but have fun, that’s what strip clubs are for. Also, the Toy Chest, has phenomenal women with some national stars rolling through when they’re in Detroit.

Trumpp’s
21413 W. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.592.1190

Seriously, you can feel like the Donald himself at Trumpp’s. This gentleman’s club is upscale and they really do accommodate your every need. Good drinks, covered. Fine dining, covered. Cigars, covered. Beautiful ladies, uncovered. Anyway that is the whole point of a strip club, getting taken care of while watching some hotties.

Tycoon’s
12210 E. Eight Mile Rd., Detroit, Michigan; Tel. 313.372.0660

Tycoon’s is a good place, but not in the upper echelon so far as Detroit strip clubs go. The drinks are good and the prices are right, but the entertainment could improve. If the cabbie takes you here, tell him to keep driving there are better adult clubs out there, find them.

—Detroit bar and club reviews by Ryan Osterbeck

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Strip Club Owners Protest New Rules

Friday, June 19th, 2009

ttp://www.clickondetroit.com/news/19766784/detail.html/

http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/19782131/

Council Concerned New Rules Go Too Far

POSTED: Tuesday, June 16, 2009
UPDATED: 7:16 pm EDT June 17, 2009

DETROIT — Strip club owners and dancers showed up in downtown Detroit Wednesday to protest rule changes for strip clubs.

The new rules would put some distance between strippers and customers and ban alcohol consumption inside the clubs.

Detroit City Council took up the new rules during a meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Strip Club Owners Don’t Want New Rules

The city has about 30 topless bars. If the new rules are approved, topless dancers would remain six feet from the patrons and on a stage at all times. There would also be no lap dancing and no mingling in so-called VIP rooms.

The proposed changes follow a court battle in which a federal judge in 2007 struck down Detroit’s regulations on where strip clubs could open and ordered them rewritten.

The rule that concerned council members the most was no alcohol inside the strip clubs.

“The two just go hand and hand. It’s like a casino. Is anyone going to go to a casino that doesn’t serve alcohol? Is anyone going to go to a sports bar to watch the Red Wings or the Pistons and not want to have a beer? Come on,” said Ken Cockrel Jr., Detroit City Council President.

Club owners said the rule changes would put them out of business.

The council has been under intense pressure from church groups to crack down on the clubs. Thirty-one of them are now licensed to operate in the city and that is about 40 percent of the total for the entire state.

The city is already facing lawsuits for refusing to transfer some club licenses. Council member Sheila Cockrel fears more litigation. “I’m not voting for any of these because it’s constitutionally protected behavior even if I think it’s disgusting,” said Cockrel.

The new rules would also keep new strip clubs 1,000 feet away from schools, churches or other strip clubs.

Strip Club owners appeared happy after the meeting because it appears the council members think the new rules go too far, but the issue still has a long way to go before a final decision is made on the rules.

Tell us what you think about the new changes

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Pam Anderson, Sam Ronson tricked into strip club promo? Told ya so!

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

Samantha Ronson, Pamela Anderson and Shannen Doherty were horrified, simply horrified — according to Us Weekly — when they found out they’d been booked to open a New York strip club earlier this week.

They’d all signed on to attend the grand opening of Sapphire Gentleman’s Club in NYC. But OMG, they didn’t expect strippers.

Gosh, maybe they should have read The Dish Rag. Our item dated April 16 was headlined:

“Animal rights activist Pam Anderson to open NY strip club/steakhouse. Don’t tell PETA!”

We wrote: “Now Pam reportedly has been booked to appear at the opening of a gentlemen’s (read: strip) club-slash-steakhouse in NYC.

She and another apparently hard-up honey, “The Hills’ ” Audrina Patridge, will show up for the April 27 opening of a new gentlemen’s club named Sapphire New York, which Fox News says is part of Prime 333 Steakhouse on the Upper East Side.”

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

But Audrina musta have read The Dish Rag. Or her publicist did and then reread the fine print on the contract. She mysteriously didn’t show up.

But poor Ronson — who has probably had enough of scrawny,hair-flipping, pole dancing psychos — grumpily worked the DJ booth as Sapphire’s exotic dancers bumped and grinded provocatively in front of her.

“I had no idea it was a strip club!” said Doherty, who left after 45 minutes, told Us. “They told me it was a restaurant or club, so I was kind of in shock.”

Pamela Anderson kept to herself in a roped-off booth. Her security guard told reporters that the starlet wanted to be “left alone.”

These girls are either full of it, can’t read or they need to get better managers.

Wonder how much they got paid to appear? $10 grand? $25 grand? $40 grand?

What are the going rates for illiterate has-beens these days?

Photos: Sopranos stars will go anywhere to eat steak and watch naked girls. And so will Pam Anderson. WireImage
****Posted by Elizabeth Snead on April 30, 2009 in pam anderson , strip club

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The pole vaults into a new role

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

46923934The pole vaults into a new role
Pole dancing, long associated with strip clubs, is sliding into the mainstream as an art and a (clothed) competition sport.
By Susan Josephs
May 24, 2009

Wearing a gauzy blue two-piece costume that resembles a circus acrobat’s uniform, Laura Martin climbs up an 11-foot steel pole in a move popularly called the “Caterpillar Crawl.”

Aggressive and athletic yet fluid and hyper-flexible, she proceeds to blaze through a pole-dancing routine of inverted suspensions, spins and slides.

Hoots and whistles from the female-dominated crowd compete with the live music provided by the rock band Avowed. One woman screams to a friend, “It’s just like trapeze!”
Martin, a former exotic dancer, appreciates the comparison of what she does to something other than adult entertainment.

“I want to see pole dancing get away from the stripper connotation,” says the 30-year-old San Diego-based performer and personal fitness instructor. “I want people to see it’s like any other dance form.”

The weekly showcase at Club Good Hurt in West Los Angeles represents the latest evolution in pole dancing’s migration from the strip club to the fitness class to the mainstream performance venue. It features Southern California pole dancers performing to live rock music in a setting where, according to show producer Emilee Wilson, there’s “no tipping and no stripping.”

While pole dancing has been gaining acceptance in recent years as a form of physical fitness — classes are offered in gyms and dance studios across the country — there have been few performance opportunities outside of exotic dance clubs for dancers who spend years perfecting their skills and seek professional, artistic recognition.

Though the fact that the dance poles are easily portable and installable on a variety of surfaces point to a range of performance possibilities, Wilson and others say the opposite is true.

“There’s just not a lot out there right now so that people can see pole dancing as a serious dance form,” says Leigh Acosta, a 30-year-old pole dance instructor, aerial artist and recent performer at the showcase. “I think a lot of people still see it as something scandalous, the way people thought burlesque was scandalous, or belly dancing.”

That may change, however, considering that Cirque du Soleil hired a champion pole dancer in January to perform in its Las Vegas-based “Zumanity,” and pole-dance competitions judged by dancers and choreographers have sprung up all over the world.

The year-old New York City-based US Pole Dance Federation, for example, plans to sponsor annual competitions and pledges on its website to promote pole dancing as a “sensual and athletic art form.”

Locally, there’s Wilson’s effort to produce an “acrobatic pole show for women who want to perform but not in a strip club.

“What I’m doing is offering women a safe space where they get respect,” says Wilson, a 27-year-old actress and pole dancer who used to perform at Jumbo’s Clown Room, a Hollywood bikini bar. “Most of the women I met at Jumbo’s were really artistic, and none of them had implants. They were there because they really wanted to perform, and performers need an audience.”

About 100 people — with a roughly 3-2 female-male ratio — packed the red-paneled bar and checkered dance floor area on a recent Monday to watch a lineup of performers that included Acosta, Nicole Williams, a popular local pole-dance instructor, and Mina Mortezaie, whose forte seems to be perfectly executed vertical and inverted split maneuvers.

Mortezaie, 26, trained in gymnastics, modern dance, jazz, ballet and hip-hop before discovering pole dance. “I got addicted to it immediately because it combines everything I’ve been obsessed with: strength, flexibility, grace.”

Though she considered working at strip clubs, Mortezaie has created her own performance opportunities, which have included staging “pole nights” at the Culver City restaurant and bar Rush Street and forming her own burlesque dance troupe that incorporates the pole in its repertoire.

“I didn’t want to dance for men in clubs,” she says. “I wanted to dance for myself.”

For her performance, Mortezaie wore a tiny pink-and-black bikini and sported thigh-high shiny black boots. All of the performers wore bathing-suit-type costumes, a necessity, they say, since bare skin allows them to perform moves that require gripping with various parts of the body. As for their high heels, “every dance has its shoe,” observes Anna Grundstrom, the co-founder of the US Pole Dance Federation. “In high heels, you can grip higher on the pole.”

As a dancer, Mortezaie seemed to accentuate the sexy elements of her movements. She considers this “empowering,” while other dancers, like Martin, favor a less overtly sexual approach.

“I actually try to numb that part down,” says Martin, a self-taught pole dancer who cross-trains in martial arts, yoga, boxing and running. “You can’t take a woman’s natural seductiveness away from her, but I tend to stay away from the shake-your-ass maneuvers.”

Acosta, who demonstrates a languid, graceful performance quality in her routines, feels she’s “not a very sexy performer” but defends the dancers who are.

“I think it would be wrong to take out the sexual appeal of it, otherwise pole dancing would be nothing more than just stunts and gymnastics,” she says. “So much of dance is sexy. I’ve seen modern dance performances where it looks like the dancers are having sex.”

Judith Lynne Hanna, a dance scholar at the University of Maryland, points out that many dance forms contain sensual or sexual elements and were stigmatized at various points in their histories.

Hanna, who has served as an expert witness on more than 100 court cases related to exotic dance regulation, also mentioned examples of highly regarded choreographers such as modern dance pioneer Anna Halprin, who received a warrant for her arrest in 1967 when she presented a dance involving female nudity in New York.

“And then you have belly dancing, which contended with stigmas similar to pole dancing,” Hanna says.

Though some people attempt to trace contemporary pole dancing to the traditional Indian sport of Mallakhamb, or pole gymnastics, Hanna says the form really got its start in the 1980s, when strip clubs “became more upscale and elegant. I’m not sure when it became so gymnastic, but at some point, pole dancers became very skilled,” she says. “After all, if everyone’s doing the same thing but you do something different, you could attract more tips.”

Outside the strip clubs, pole dancing continues to evolve, with new tricks and terms being invented and dancers exchanging information by posting performance and instructional videos on YouTube.

“What I call an outside leg hook might be called ‘the firefly’ in one studio and ‘the fireman’ in another,” says Grundstrom, who mentions efforts to “put a Web page together with names of moves we all agree on.”

Grundstrom feels that pole dancing is “in the middle” of significant evolution. “Some people have kept the flowing, circling movements, others are more athletic,” she says, noting the recent petition to get pole dancing included as an event in the 2012 Olympics.

“The athletes will see it more as a sport and the dancers as more of an art,” she said. “Our goal at the Federation is to make pole dancing credible . . . the more you put pole dancing in other places, the more you change people’s minds.”

calendar@latimes.com

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Rihanna Hits the Strip Club

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

Wed., May. 20, 2009 8:00 AM PDT by Cristina Gibson, Ashley Fultz & Claudia Rosenbaum

Rihanna’s been working and playing hard during her time in NYC.

While the singer’s been busy in the recording studio during the days, she’s been spending her nights out on the town.

On Sunday night, RiRi and her band hit Flashdancers gentlemen’s club on Broadway around midnight, after finishing up in the studio.

According to a club insider, it was her first time at the strip club, but that didn’t stop her from tipping the topless girls dancing.

“She and her group were tipping the girls quite frequently…it wasn’t only Rihanna,” a source tells E! News. “They had a good time. They were drinking sodas and water.”

So did Rihanna just watch from afar or did she get up close and personal with the dancing girls?

A source says that the Barbados beauty didn’t get a lap dance and left the club around 2:30 am.

She’s also been partying at hot spot 1Oak, where she hung until 3:30 am on Saturday night.

Now that we know she and Lady Gaga didn’t really collaborate, can’t wait to hear what’s keeping her busy during the day.

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