Interview With Michele Beck, Director Of MY EROTIC BODY

Michele Beck didn’t have an interest in pole dancing originally. Curious, she decided to take a class at the S-Factor in New York City. After seeing the impact on the women there, and how it transformed them, Michele decided to stick around for a couple of years. Inspired by classes, Michele decided to create a documentary about her experience. My Erotic Body aims to defeat the stigma around pole dancing and showcase a side of it that’s free from the male gaze. The film allows audiences to gain an intimate look at what happens in the S Factor studio. It’s a place where women are encouraged to be themselves as they get in touch with their erotic creatures.

I was able to talk to Michele about her film, how it came to be and the empowerment of pole dancing. I also talked to her about her plans for the future following My Erotic Body.

Adriana Gomez-Weston for Film Inquiry: How was the process for making this? I know it’s an intimate experience and there are a lot women in the film. Did they approach you? Did you approach them? How did this start coming together?

Michele Beck: I had been at the studio for four years, so I had been around and people sort of knew my face. I had the idea and I approached the person who owns the studio in New York. I sort of assumed that everyone would say “no” just for exactly those reasons. For me I felt it was such a personal experience, I wouldn’t really want to be filmed. I would assume that no one would really want to be filmed. But the woman who owned the studio said, “Sure! Absolutely! We’d love to do that!”

Actually, all we did was really simple. I didn’t ask anyone personally. I sent a call out to the teachers with a short little video explaining what I wanted to do and people contacted me.

Did you specifically choose the S Factor for its values and how it approaches sexuality? A lot of pole studios focus mostly on the fitness aspect and eliminate the sexual part of it.

Michele Beck: The thing about the S Factor, I wasn’t really interested in pole dancing at all. Someone had told me about the studio. I tried the introductory class and ended up staying there for four years. I never went off and tried another pole studio. What kept me at that studio was the focus was really on something that was very personal. It wasn’t so much that they were telling us what to do. It was introducing us to ideas or introducing us to this idea of wearing clothing that you’d really like to dance in, or they would show us moves but there was no obligation to do anything. I think what kept me at that studio was that it was open enough there that I never felt contained by what they were trying to show us. They weren’t saying,

“Here’s how to be sexy for guy!” I would walk out the door if someone said that to me because that’s not what I’m interested in. What they were really focusing on was how to be comfortable in your own body and how to discover your own movement. I was there about six years and even after that six years, I still wasn’t very good at using the pole. But what it offered me was a community and this opportunity to do my own dance. It created this space for women who aren’t dancers, or aren’t necessarily physically fit. It’s people who wanted to explore their own connection to their bodies. That’s why it was so special in a way. I don’t think other studios necessarily do that. There’s a lot of pole studios that don’t focus on the sensuality of the movement. It’s for doing the tricks properly.

I think it was this very personal focus that everyone could develop their own movement in their own way and there was a real respect from the other people for that. I come from an art background. It almost became this space for me to try out performances. It felt open enough that I could really expand my movement.

Did you take anything you learned from the studio and then translate it over to your performance art?

Michele Beck: I’m not performing so much now because I’m interested more in film at the moment. I think what I might do is pick the film up from there…How can this movement be expanded outside of the pole studio? Probably the point that I left the studio is when I felt like I couldn’t grow anymore. In a certain level they are kind of constrained by this idea of pole dancing as a sexy activity. I was interested is seeing how could use those movements in a more expansive way…maybe connecting them with Butoh, and making them not so gendered. Not all the classes were like that, but the class that I was in…The women expressed a lot of different emotions. It wasn’t just a sexy thing – it was anger and sadness. It was like expressing all the emotions.

I am interested in another film project that will explore this. There’s a woman in New York who I’ve seen dance is, who is a pole dancer. Her movement is so unusual. If you see her in person, she’s this very petite, very attractive young woman, but when she dances, she totally changes her body. She looks very masculine when she dances. She looks very ungendered. I’m interested in how to incorporate that sensual movement but expand it outside of that realm of just pole dancing and how it can be incorporated into other things.

You documentary focuses on the allure of pole dancing, but have you actively tried to encourage other people to try it or at least change their perception of it?

Michele Beck: I didn’t really have a crew on this film. It more or less just me and then I hired students of mine. It was interesting to bring them to the studio because they were pretty hesitant about it or they saw pole dancing exactly the way I used to see it – like it’s degrading for women. It’s really fascinating to see how they become really interested in it. I do tell people about it and encourage some people to the studio – not that I’m trying to sell it. For me personally, it really connected me to some kind of sensuality that I never knew that I had or that it was OK to have. I encouraged people so that they could have that kind of experience with their body and have that kind of feeling of empowerment. I’m not a particularly pushy person. I think people do it when they’re ready and when they really want to.

Do you still listen to certain types of music because of your experience in the studio? I remember you talking about Marilyn Manson and how you’re not a fan, but your body is. Do you bring that outside of the studio or did you leave that there?

Michele Beck: It’s funny, when I go to the gym now I listen to that kind of music. I never used to listen to music like that. When I’m walking…I live in Manhattan. I walk everywhere, so I’ll be walking for about 45 minutes and put on that kind of music. I’m just going really fast and I’m grooving. There’s definitely something about that music that really gets my body moving along. Other kinds of music do other things for me. That was a kind of music that I was like “That’s crappy music! I don’t ever want to listen to that.” Now I definitely have a whole playlist of funky songs that I listen to.

Do you have any projects planned for the future?

Michele Beck: It’s on Amazon. It’s actually doing really well. I’m getting millions of hits on there. What I’m working on now is a film about creative process. I have a composer and a sculptor, and I’m following them from the beginning of a project to the presentation of the project. It’s about being an artist and all the many pleasant and very unpleasant things that can happen when you’re trying to art into the world. There’s so many ideas in the Erotic Body film that I only touched on or didn’t get to. I’m really interested just in movement – not so much with dancers’ movement, but people and movement. I think that’s why I like the women in my film because they’re not dancers. I always like there’s something really authentic. I also want to take some of the footage from Erotic Body and make into an art installation that can go into a gallery.

I’ve been fascinated by pole dancing for a while. There was a pole studio across the street from my house and I just never really went in there to see what they’re about. It’s really nice to see how it’s impacted people. 

Michele Beck: I never thought I would take a pole dancing class and I never thought I would make this film. I would tell people in my life about it but I couldn’t explain what was going on, then I thought that this would be a great film to make. It’s interesting to try it once and see if it speaks to you or not. At first I was just going to take the class and go home. It was just amazing to see this woman dance. It was a very powerful experience just to see that expression and movement, and to see her transform. She was this totally normal woman not dressed in anything particularly special. When she started dancing she became this other creature. It was all this energy and she was so beautiful I couldn’t believe it. Then I was, “I’m coming back!”

Film Inquiry thanks Michele Beck for taking the time to speak with us. 

My Erotic Body is now available to stream on Amazon Prime. For more information on its release dates and festival appearances, visit here. 

https://vimeo.com/174685180