I remember the phone call as if it were yesterday. Her voice had an accent, but I couldn’t quite place from where. “I’ve been searching for you for 6 months. You are so hard to get hold of.”
I smiled. Her words held an excited fervor. She told me she was a documentarian and wanted to make a film about the healing power of feminine movement and pole dance. She’d been researching for a few months, going from one pole studio to another and as she put it, “All roads lead back to you, Sheila.”
I spoke to her about the feminine empowerment I’d helped create through movement and pole dance over the last 18 years. She listened intently. She took the time to understand the power of a woman moving her body into the integrity of her shape. She spoke passionately about women. I knew she understood S Factor was a sensual journey that a woman takes to reclaim her body. That it was a private personal journey of rediscovery. That it is not about the watcher but the dancer. If I agreed to be a part of the film, she made a vow to show the true beauty and power of S Factor movement. And not skew it for the (male) consumer’s eye. This is just one of the qualities that makes her an extraordinary filmmaker. She seeks the truth.
I agreed to be a part of the film and to allow her cameras to come into the extremely private world of S Factor and document this yet unseen world.
I have been practicing S Factor for 21 years now. It is still virtually impossible to put words to the S Factor experience. When people hear “pole dance”, “6 inch stilettos”, “sensual movement,” they roll their eyes and think, sarcastically, “Oh yeah, a bunch of women writhing around a pole in their underwear. Yeah, how transformational.” Their minds close. Our sexual repression is so deeply ingrained in the fabric of our culture that to see the profound freedom break a woman experiences through sensual dance and how that freedom break resounds throughout her entire life is nigh impossible.
Strip Down, Rise Up, does just that.
It shows the mysterious world of S Factor in a way that words can hardly describe. It’s Fight Club for women, where the dancers are not trying to maim each other like Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, but elevate and appreciate the inherent beauty of each other’s bodies. It is beautifully shot, deeply touching, and oh yeah, pretty sexy.
S Factor is beautifully represented in the doc, yes, and so are pole performance, with the ever stunning Jenyne Butterfly; pole competition, with superwoman Amy Bond; and pole artistry, with the gorgeous Viki Brown. It is an honor to share the screen with all of these amazing women.
Filming Strip Down, Rise up was a labor of love and devotion. We started shooting one on one interviews in January 2018. What I found out rather quickly is Michele cuts through all the niceties and gets right to the point. My kind of woman. She’s direct, thoughtful, and perceptive as hell, like a world class hunter.
In March of the same year, we started shooting classes with students for Strip Down, Rise Up. Forty-six glorious women participated in the raw and deep and never-before-filmed journey. Six extraordinary S Factor teachers supported these women as we guided these brave women through a life changing six month journey that was all captured on camera. No pressure though!
The release of Strip Down, Rise Up will be a truly pivotal moment for the global pole community. It’s the first time the transformational phenomenon of this practice will be shared for all to witness and understand.
Three things occur to me now in January 2021 as I look back on the experience of taking this movement practice I created over 20 years ago onto camera with Strip Down, Rise Up.
First, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I have devoted my life to the women I have taught over the last two decades, but working with a documentary filmmaker was an entirely different kind of labor of love . I got my ass totally kicked and it was so worth it!
Second, I had no idea it would take nearly three years to see the fulfillment of this creative vision. I’m so grateful to be part of a story that showcases the profundity of female sensuality in daily life.
Finally, I didn’t expect that my life would change irrevocably by this Strip Down, Rise Up filming odyssey. Witnessing 46 women take such a deep, healing and celebratory ride to body freedom was riveting. It changed me because even though I’d been teaching for 18 years, I had done so in the dark intimacy and privacy of S Factor’s half-secret “Fight Club-but-not-maiming” studios and retreats. Not many have ever had the privilege of witnessing a woman’s intimate S Factor journey. And here we had 46 brave beautiful souls coming out of the dark to show the world what really happens when a woman reclaims her erotic feminine body. Strip Down, Rise Up will blow your mind away.
Being a part of the Netflix documentary Strip Down, Rise Up reconnected me to the utter magic and indescribable power that exists within every single woman on Earth.
Mark you calendars for Friday February 5th at ??:00 for the premiere. Let’s watch it together!
