Hollywood star and celebrity Carmen Electra was pictured at the Music Saves Lives 5 Year Anniversary Party in Los Angeles on Thursday (February 25). the former Playboy and baywatch beauty hit up hollywood hotpsot joining party goers including Cheryl Burke, Courtenay Semel, Shannon Elizabeth and Lacey Schwimmer. The Music Saves Lives event was held to help persuade fans of the world of music to get active in donating blood for charitable health needs.

Along with helping collect blood, Music Saves Lives (MSL) “has focused efforts on blood donation and the bone marrow registry, reaching out by sharing facts, educating and empowering” – with celebs like Katy Perry having contribute to the cause.

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, otherwi

GLAMOUR girl Abi Titmus is turning her back on the image that found her fame – in a quest to be taken seriously as an actress.

The former nurse was regularly featured in lads’ mags in saucy poses and she became known as a girl who, ahem, certainly dressed down for the cameras.

Yet the newly clean-cut Abi says those days are far behind her.

However, her new theatre role is a little risqué – she plays a pole dancing teacher in comedy The Naked Truth.

But Abi is quick to add there’s no actual nudity in the play, heading to Manchester’s Opera House next week, co-starring Bury’s Lisa Riley and actress Emily Aston.

She tells me she’s spent months rehearsing: “I asked the director how good I needed to be at pole-dancing for this part, and he just looked at me and said: `extraordinary’.

“I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I threw myself into it and spent three months practising, before rehearsals for the play even started. It’s like an athletic sport it’s so tricky, but people just think of it with connotations of being in seedy clubs.

“I thought people might jump to conclusions with me pole dancing, so I was very aware that I needed to make it look as beautiful and graceful as possible.

“It just feels really nice to be good at something.”

Abi found fame as a glamour model after a relationship with controversial TV presenter John Leslie, but shelved the lads’ mag modelling to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an actress last year.

“I wasn’t happy,” she says. “So I decided I had to stop what I was doing, the whole celebrity side of things.

“I’ve taken a step back from all that now and want people to know I’m serious about acting. But I don’t think the world owes me a living, I auditioned for this job just like everybody else.”

And Abi has lofty acting ambitions: “I would love to do Shakespeare, to play Helena or Lady Macbeth.

“But I would also love to be involved in a TV drama – like Miss Marple or Poirot.”

Abi insists she has no regrets about her past.

“I’ve been through some huge highs and huge lows, but I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunities I have had.

“I’ve worked hard to maintain where I am. I never understood why it all happened to me, but it did and I’m very grateful for that. But I didn’t want to be famous just for being famous.”

The Naked Truth is at Manchester Opera House from June 8 to 13.

Pole professional Adam Webb – who goes by the stage name “Corey Cruise” – has been running pole dance lessons at the Penthouse Night Club in Wellington Street for four years.

I’ve been teaching dance all my professional life,” Cruise says.

“As far as I know, there’s no other pole dancing men in Australia.

“I find it to be like ballet – the girl is the star and the guy is the pole.”

Cruise regularly straddles the pole himself, but says he’s only ever taught pole dancing to women.

He says he wants to teach blokes how to participate in the exercise fad that’s been the exclusive domain of women-only gymnasiums in recent years.

It wouldn’t be such a stretch, Cruise says, because he’s been teaching both sexes how to strip for years.

“We actually had a female model who wanted to learn to strip to give her boyfriend a surprise and get him to propose to her, and he did,” Cruise says.

“I’m actually thinking about turning that concept around and starting up ‘teach your hubby how to strip’ lessons.

“It’d be a great way of giving her a Valentines Day pressie without spending any money.”

Cruise says pole dancing, both male and female, has huge potential.

“The exercise and all that side of it has definitely taken it out of the strip clubs and into the mainstream,” he says.

“It has still got that rude connotation, but it’s no longer considered crude.

“There’s companies out there now petitioning to have pole dancing included in the Olympic Games.”

Cruise maintains the pastime suits gay and straight guys alike.

“I’m straight, but everyone thinks you’re gay because of what you do,” he says.

“It’s the old Billy Elliot thing – you’re considered a ‘poofter’ if you do it.

“It’s normally a girl’s world, but for a guy to step into it shows he’s comfortable with his sexuality.”

Cruise says he has even half-written a ballet inspired by the raunchy art form.

“I want to do for pole dancing what Tap Dogs did for Tap,” he says.

Jacinta Dudley studies advertising and marketing at Edith Cowan University by day, and pole dancing with Cruise by night.

“He’s a great teacher – very strong and he can catch,” Ms Dudley replies when asked why she chose to learn pole dancing from a man.

“I am pretty strong, but sometimes you get yourself in a tricky situation.

“Some of the routines are pretty hard and it’s good if someone can spot you the first few times.”
souce

The actress/model opened the doors to her germ-free retreat, where her son is home schooled by teachers who understand his condition, to U.S. TV show Access Hollywood recently – and admitted there’s a naughty secret in his playroom.

As well as a climbing rope attached to the ceiling, there’s also a metal pole that McCarthy revealed is not exactly what it seems. She explains, “The fireman’s pole was, like, $2,000, and the strip-aerobics pole was $200.”

Meanwhile, McCarthy has bought the property next to her home and plans to turn both into a center for autistic children.

Little Evan is a recovered autistic child. source

Pole dancing is so hot! check out these girls pole dancing in New york city subway.

The former ‘Baywatch’ actress is so obsessed with the raunchy exercise regime that she has designed a fold-away pole which can be set up anywhere.

She said: “I am so excited to have a new pole coming out, a portable stripper pole. The great thing about my portable pole is you can put it in your own living room or you can do the workout in your bedroom. No-one has to see you do it. It’s up to you – you can perform for your husband or boyfriend, or do it more as a workout and focus on that.”

Carmen, 36, also said she has no intention of following in the footsteps of Beyonce Knowles, Ashlee Simpson and Mariah Carey and having a quickie wedding, because she wants to take things with fiance Rob Patterson “super, super slow”.

She added to ‘Fox News’: “I have known Rob for years – we were friends first and then we just started dating. He’s super sweet, really, really nice and a really kind, loving person. There are no plans for the wedding as of yet, we’re taking things really, really, really, slow.

“It’s just funny how you get engaged and everyone thinks you’re getting married tomorrow – even my friends were calling me going, ‘Are you pregnant? I heard you’re pregnant. Is that true?’ All these rumours and gossip start, it’s funny. But it could be 10 years. I really want to take it super, super slow.”

Here is a video showcasing just what you can do with your own home stripper pole kit.