UCLA alumna’s pole dancing company defies gravity and expectations
UCLA alumna Jessica Anderson-Gwin founded JAGGED, a contemporary pole dancing company. (courtesy of Isaac Suttell)
JAGGED PRESENTS “WHEN THE CURTAIN FALLS”
Friday-Sunday
Electric Lodge "“ Venice, $25
By Teresa Jue
Oct. 13, 2010 12:22 a.m.
For UCLA alumna Jessica Anderson-Gwin, the pole is another form of the ballet bar.
Anderson-Gwin began taking pole dancing classes while simultaneously enrolled in the world arts and cultures program at UCLA and saw the moves on the bar as a form of balletic expression and, most notably, as an art.
In September 2009, Anderson-Gwin started JAGGED, a contemporary pole dancing company that combines dance and art, wishing to eliminate the misconceptions of pole dancing as purely a profession of strippers in bikinis and platform heels.
“I kind of got this vision in my head of doing this synchronized pole dancing of a big group of girls dancing in a theatrical way that would bring people’s mind from the obscene to more of the beauty and strength and grace of pole dancing, to see it more of a dance form,” she said.
Putting out an ad on Craigslist and calling her friends who danced, Anderson-Gwin started auditioning and practicing with a select group of dancers. Principal dancer Sarah Mann was one of the dancers who auditioned and consequently was chosen as a lead dancer.
“Most people usually think of pole dancing as something sexual, and Jessica thought of this whole other world of pole dancing. It’s a lot more than just being sexy on a pole. There’s a completely artistic dance side of it, and Jessica uses JAGGED to bring it to the general population,” Mann said.
JAGGED will be presenting its first full-length pole dancing show, titled “When the Curtain Falls,” Friday through Sunday at the Electric Lodge in Venice. The show will feature a fusion of vertical hip-hop, ballet, lyrical and a mix other various other types of dance, segmented into the three themes of love, money and death.
“We can’t go through life without coming into contact with these three things, and I thought it would be most relatable to things I’ve experienced in my own life. There’s just three different situations and how we as people deal with them, and it’s about having universal themes that people can relate to,” Anderson-Gwin said.
Amy Shimshon-Santo ““ a former UCLA professor who instructed Anderson-Gwin in the ArtsBridge program that brought arts education to underserved schools in the community ““ noticed her ability to showcase dance and themes to new audiences.
“I know she is a woman with a lot of depth, taking up something that is not necessarily highly respected as an art form and turns it into something that is a creative and artistic outlet,” Shimshon-Santo said.
It was also at UCLA that Anderson-Gwin realized the depth and storytelling ability that dance could have, infusing that into JAGGED and her upcoming show.
“Before I came to UCLA, I was just dancing to dance, and being in the world arts and culture program at UCLA helped me to think more critically about dance, and to be more critical dancing about what message you are portraying in dancing,” Anderson-Gwin said.
“It can be more than a dance. It can be a story, a message, it can used in so many different ways.”
UCLA alumna Mina Mortezaie, another principal dancer in the show, taught Anderson-Gwin pole dancing in her classes. The show moved its emphasis away from the explicit sexuality by eliminating platform heels and adapting to the more natural soles of the feet.
“The whole show is done mostly in bare feet,” Mortezaie said. “Platform heels are no-no.”
The transition from dancing on the ground to aerial dancing was also a strain on the body for the dancers, where pole burn is a real possibility.
“Pole dancing is pretty painful, and you have to have a strong will, and your skin actually adapts to the pole. Your nerve endings shrink in certain places, so it gets easier. It’s definitely something that you need to be strong-headed to do,” Anderson-Gwin said.
For the audiences of the upcoming show, artistic subtlety will be a running motif on the pole.
“I would really like people viewing the show to come with an open mind,” Mortezaie said. “I’m sure a lot of people are going to have preconceived notions about what its going to be considering what they’ve seen of pole dancing in the past, but I think they’re going to be surprised about how we portray pole dancing in a totally different light.”
