Remember the pole dancers in the National Day Parade show last year?
Although our nation's 45th birthday is still four months away, I'm already hoping they will return this year.
I know what you're thinking - because I'm thinking the same thing:
If we're going to have pole dancers at the NDP, we might as well go all the way and have them do a striptease too. After all, isn't it customary for pole dancers to take off their clothes?
Of course, we can't have nudity at the NDP. Children are watching. The dancers could just strip down to their bikinis, which would cover all the naughty bits. That should be okay.
It would make up for the closing down of Crazy Horse.
This may sound like a pipe dream, but I'm telling you now it's quite possible.
I believe one of the justifications for featuring pole dancers in the NDP is that gyrating around a long vertical metal bar is no longer reserved for adults-only strip clubs. Pole dancing has become a form of aerobic dance exercise, along with Latin, hip-hop and yes, belly dancing.
There is even an International Pole Dance Fitness Association - seriously.It has recently petitioned the International Olympic Committee to recognise pole dancing as an Olympic sport - though probably not in time for the Singapore-hosted Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in August.
We may not get pole dancing at the YOG, but all is not lost. Singapore is hosting the grand finals of the Pole Stars Talent Showcase in two weeks on April 24.
So by showcasing pole dancing at last year's NDP, the organisers were simply introducing another way of keeping fit to Singaporeans who may not be otherwise familiar with the activity since we don't have access to strip clubs here as Singapore doesn't allow them.
And how can promoting fitness be a bad thing? So if pole dancing can be a form of exercise, why not stripping? Like an answer to my prayers, RazorTV reported last week that Groove Dance School in Singapore is offering a course in “Stripexercise”.
I immediately clicked onto the school's website to check it out. The website says: “Take them off...the clothes, the calories and the inhibitions. Groove will teach you the basic moves of the striptease and combine them with aerobic elements and dance techniques to create a fun, energising, and sexy workout.”
The course is “for ladies only”, which means I can't join, dammit!
The school also offers courses in “Exotic Dance” and “Lap Dance Naughty Schoolgirl”. Surprisingly, the website doesn't say that these two courses are for ladies only. In the Exotic Dance class, you'll learn the “kitten crawl” and the “hooker walk”.
Forget stripping. I, for one, am dying to see the hooker walk at the NDP. It could one day be an Olympic sport.
- Published in The New Paper, 11 April 2010
UPDATE: Pole-dancing was part of the 2010 Youth Olympic Games opening ceremony (below), but not as a competitive event.
