Research Question: 
What is the role of practicing pole dance to translate and transform an Islamic parable which contains intimidating and binary structures?

Card: Gravity

Interpretation: Embrace the relativity of your capability to triumph against natural law, just like you might be defeated by the tiniest abstract constructs.

My Hajji (pilgrim) grandmother told me a horrifying parable when I was eight, and for twenty years it has been sitting deep in my subconsciousness. This eschatological myth has been a living spirit inside me, waiting to be unraveled. My research is an auto-ethnographic work on a young woman’s journey into the trauma initiated with this parable and translating it by means of pole dance practices. Methods of collecting data include observation notes, auto-ethnographic reflection on my own experience with the practice, as well as in-depth interviews with pole dance practitioners. 

Since the essential principle of pole dance is to spin around a thin, solid structure, the research ventures on the function of circular movements to break certain binary concepts (i.e. reward vs. punishment, heaven vs. hell) taught in the mentioned eschatological parable. Inhabiting a monumental amount of fear, this parable preaches to individuals that their deeds in life will have consequences in the afterlife. By carrying this afterlife examination to the real world, I started to learn pole dance at the beginning of this project and observed my own experiences and emotions.

The fieldwork takes place in a pole dance studio located in Kadıköy district of Istanbul. In this studio, women and LGBTQ+ individuals from various ideological and socio-economic backgrounds come together to practice pole dance regularly. These people define this place as a safe and private place, detached from the conservative and misogynist reality in Turkey. In a way, it is a safe haven and maybe even a shrine where certains rituals are practiced for self-healing and empowerment. This led me to investigate the ways in which pole dance practices trigger the connection between physical activity and resilience, through its path from gradual physical strengthening  to individual and social empowerment.