Author: AYSE KELCE

 

Pole dance is normalized with the rising popularity of pole fitness

By Ayse Kelce

 

Pole fitness is becoming more popular each year with new studios opening all around the world. The obstacle for the trend to grow in the beginning was the controversy of pole dance being associated with stripping. Yet, with more pole dance and fitness studios determined to show the world that pole fitness is more than that, and highly physically challenging in fact; more people are intrigued to give it a chance.

“It [pole fitness] is definitely a lot more common now. People are a lot more open to it. It is not as big of a taboo anymore, and people are more understanding that it is a form of fitness. It requires take physical endurance and cardio,” said Ashley Fox, co-owner of Foxy Fitness & Pole.

Foxy Fitness & Pole is a black-owned pole studio that has been around since 2011. Fox started planning to turn her passion into a business while she was a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, with the encouragement of the other co-owner, Virgil Avery. 

At the age of 32, Fox now co-owns two Foxy Fitness & Pole studios in New York and New Jersey. She has been competing in national and international fitness pole competitions, and had won several titles including American Pole League Champion in 2019.

“When I started, a lot of people would ask about the exotic style, like it would be the focus; but now, they are more understanding of the competition aspect and fitness aspects of it,” Fox said about the progress of pole fitness.

Even in the history of her own studio, they did not accept male students up until 2019. With the rise of the pole fitness trend, the studio started having co-ed Sundays. Fox explained that in the beginning, they had to consider that the majority of the people who were interested in pole were women. “But now, we would love to help men grow in pole fitness as well,” she added.

Fox was also featured in Calvin Klein’s Performance Line campaign, while the famous model Bella Hadid was the face of the campaign. Fox admitted that the hardest part of the campaign was to perform with  the pole tricks with leggings since pole dance and fitness usually requires bare legs to stick and easily hold onto the pole. “It was such a great display of pole and the athletic aspects of it,” she said. 

As pole’s popularity rose, more productions started including pole dance and fitness. Some Foxy Fitness Pole’s instructors and students appeared in the Hustlers movie which had famous stars like Jennifer Lopez and Cardi B. They also performed on the concert stages with Snoop Dog, as a part of his tour in 2019. 

Around 200 to 300 students visit Fox’s studio monthly, increasing as more people feel comfortable with the idea of pole as a fitness. “It is not the most popular fitness out there right now, but it is getting there,” Fox said. 

For the video project, I would like to do a feature on Ashley Fox, pole dance performer and co-owner of Foxy Fitness Pole.  She is both the owner and one of the instructors in her studio. Fox also constantly competes in pole championships, and she has an intense training schedule. She is the  American Pole League 2019 Champion and PoleSportOrg U.S. National Champion 2018.

I think I can get good visuals from her practices, and focus the interview questions on her path to starting this profession and opening her own studio, as well as her ambition and preparation before competitions.

 

 

Baruch College is commonly known as a business-oriented school with mostly commuter students. In between the never-ending internships and side hustles, surprisingly, there are some Baruch students who care about music as well. Baruch’s only a capella group,  Blue Notes, name inspired by the famous jazz club in New York, is run by students who share a passion for singing. Founded in 2005, Blue Notes is a relatively new a capella on the collegiate a cappella scene. Ayse Kelce is reporting from one of their semiweekly practices.  

 It is a typical Thursday at Baruch College during club hours. As hundreds of students gather up for their on campus club activities, there is an unusual sound coming from the 9th floor of Newman Vertical Campus, room 135. Under the bright fluorescent light, about a dozen of Baruch Blue Notes members are singing. The president of

 the club, Rebecca Dhala, steps out from the circle of performers to talk to Kelce about Blue Notes.

“We sometimes feel like we are a little unsupported. The music departments in other colleges are a lot stronger. But, being the only a cappella group on campus can be a plus, it allows us to get closer with the music professors here at Baruch,” Dhala says. 

Dhala is a Music Major with a concentration in Management of Musical Enterprises. Students like her are hard to come by in Baruch, but Blue Notes is full of students with special talents.

Kevin Seise is the owner of the beat in the background in Blue Notes performances. He brings sound diversity to Blue Notes with being the only performer in his own category in an a capella group.

“Originally, I was a beatboxer. But, through the help of practice, I figured out that I am a baritone as well. My time here at Blue Notes has been very enlightening, and it definitely gave me an opportunity here to practice my singing. Now I am ten times more comfortable singing in front of a crowd. Being an a capella in a business school. We do not get enough recognition, ” Seise says.

Blue Notes is allocated a budget of $2,785 by the Baruch College Undergraduate Student Government. $2,430 of the budget goes to Fall and Spring Showcases. The club only has the rest $355 to plan any events on campus or hold General Interest Meetings. 

Altynai Eshinibaeva says that they do not get enough funding like the other clubs on campus, even though we are a big. She comments on the lack of recognition they are getting due the business focus of the school.

In addition to 19 current performing members, Baruch’s Blue Notes has two members for marketing purposes. It is the first se

mester that the club has a marketing team. They are hoping to get more recognition on campus. 

“There are a lot of a capella groups out there. But the only groups that get noticed are actually the Ivy League groups. Being i

n New York, there are NYU a capella groups, Columbia a capella groups… I feel like we can do more, and the school can do more for us. Especially in a business school, because most times, business and music can u

sually fall into each other in some areas. That correlation exists,” Jonathan Paul Michaelian says, and he is right about the competition.

NYU and Columbia both have nine a capella groups on their campuses. Yet, Blue Notes is gaining more recognition by attending other a cappella groups’ showcases, and using business and marketing strategies, what Baruch is actually famous for, to promote their music.

 

My first possible radio project would be on Colin Huggins, a pianist who plays piano at Washington Square Park almost every weekend. He gets a lot of attention from his listeners, and there are articles about him in many newspapers. However, even though he says that he had done dozens of interviews, he says that there was not any creative projects. I want to work on a more creative story, focusing mainly on his music and reactions of the audience.

The second idea I had was about another artist at Washington Square Park. The artist sells poetry in the park on weekends. The project would be a personal feature, using poetry and rhyme as charming sound opportunities.

 

https://aysekelce.exposure.co/bushwick-hosts-first-annual-brooklyn-bagelfest?source=share-aysekelce

The first Brooklyn Bagel Fest took place in The Bushwick Generator on September 8th. It was the first bagel festival in New York City. There were bagel themed activities, a bagel pinata and a bagel pool. I interviewed the organizer, Sam Silverman, and people who attended. The photo essay will focus on the story of the first bagel festival and Sam Silverman.