We recently connected with Lauralynn Featherpistol and have shared our conversation below.
Lauralynn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?
It’s probably going to sound naive, but I became a pole artist to turn pole dance “upside down” and challenge the status quo of what is typically associated with pole. But I get mischaracterized as a “stripper” often, especially in the early 2010’s when pole dance wasn’t quite so mainstream yet. I have a ton of respect for strippers, and I take issue with anyone who uses that word in a disparaging tone. Unfortunately, most people use it that way and assume a lot of things about how I spend my time or how I “really” make my money. It was tough at first, when I became a “pole artist” that wanted to perform in the circus (not many people were even calling it “pole art” yet), and a lot of people – especially from my home state of Minnesota – were confused about what I was doing with my life. My family was a little upset too. All I knew is that this art form lit me up and I wanted to show the world how much of a story there can be with a professional pole act. I had seen it done by others in strip clubs and at pole dance studios in LA in some jaw-dropping, artful ways. At first, I tried to couch it in circus arts because I knew aerial arts and other circus acts were widely accepted as art forms already, and I thought this would be good company for pole to be in. I’m not talking about strictly Cirque du Soleil either. There was spine-tingling performance art being done in most major cities in the 2000’s and 2010’s, and still is. Really experimental stuff, like some real David-Lynch-type stuff. Ultimately as my circus career took off, pole became more and more mainstream and popular too. This wasn’t just because of its acceptance in the circus world, but because of all the pole competitions all over the world, too.
At a certain point I found circus to be too limiting for my artistic voice as well, and I started my own project called Pole for the Globe in 2017. The goal is to bring pole to wider audiences but also I focus on donating a portion of all proceeds to earth charities and gathering like minded souls to cope with the chaos of our world. I really felt called to be an artist-activist. To date we’ve donated over $10K to the earth!! Our tribe is an eco-focused group that believes in coming together, raising our voices, and finding healing through sound, art and community. I release sound healing meditations with the pagan wheel of the year, create art installations and performances with pole and without, and try to share action items for defending the earth. It’s a big task but hey – that’s life right?
In the end, I’ve learned that any person who jumps to conclusions about me as a person, and assumes I’m a stripper/hooker/slut really just says a lot about them as a person and has nothing to do with me. It also isn’t a reflection of the validity of my art either. It’s a reflection of their own body issues, their shame around sex/sensuality, and their misogyny. So it’s a “sounds like a You problem” response from me now.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Lauralynn Featherpistol is an eco-feminist who creates performances, sound healing meditations, video art, photos, and installations revealing a mysterious universal truth: pole dance is a ritual pathway to invoking our wise ancient ancestors, feeling sound healing in our cells, embracing body positivity and worshipping the earth. This sacred truth is woven into her bones, her muscles and her soul. She has performed for circus audiences of thousands and the intimate settings of small cabaret clubs all over the world. Yet – she is always guided by the personal and sacred magic between a human body and a dance pole. Her studies as a Sound Healer strengthened this ethos.
Featherpistol’s work uses the sensuality of pole dance to access ancient frequencies of consciousness. On stage, she exists as a body in motion spinning on a central axis. Her style brings circular movement to an often linear world, drawing inspiration from the undulating shapes of sound waves and the sacred rhythms of traditional dance forms. By incorporating acrobatics into her choreography, these sinuous shapes are contrasted with strong lines. It’s an important aspect to her work that she displays both femininity (the circle) and masculinity (the line) in the same performance. By allowing her head and neck to circle around her torso, she is tuning her body and mind and inviting you to join her. When she circles her torso and hips, she’s beckoning the music to enter her cells and transmit their power, and hopes you feel something too. As she strikes acrobatic poses on the pole, she is harnessing all of her strength to hold those lines, and juxtaposing this immutable energy with her slithering forms. This creates an interval for audiences to access their own response to these movements. Perhaps they can find a space to feel something they otherwise couldn’t access. This isn’t just pole dance, this is something sacred.
With this, “Feather” has brought pole dancing from strip club-connotations to the light of day as a form of healing, communication with the divine, spiritual time travel, and activism. When we worship our bodies in this way, we worship the earth. When we worship the earth, we worship the equality of all species that live on this planet with us. Activation: symbiosis. Welcome to the tribe.
Backstory: After graduating college at USC with a degree in Chemistry and Art History, she lived in Florence, Italy for a year as a Fulbright Fellow studying Art Conservation Science. It was there she made a life-changing decision to pursue the physical arts and leave the world of chemical analysis of artistic pigments. She didn’t want to study art through the lens of spectrometry, but rather live and breathe it with all her senses.
She moved back to Los Angeles, became a certified National Academy of Sports Medicine personal trainer, and studied the aerial arts of silks and lyra. She also became an advanced student of Tiger Crane Kung Fu. When one of her fitness clients gave her an Intro pole lesson at S Factor Dance Studio, fate struck her heart and changed her future forever. She began her pole dance journey in the summer of 2006 and quickly became an Instructor at Sheila Kelley’s S Factor. Her pole style opened the world of performance to her and once again her world changed.
“Featherpistol” moved to San Francisco in 2009 – in search of something deeper than what she had seen in the entertainment world thus far. Shortly thereafter she started working with world-renowned acrobatics coach Dominik Wyss at the San Francisco Circus Center. Yet, she had experienced something while pole dancing she knew had nothing to do with circus or acrobatics. She knew her body was vibrating when she danced, and she knew it was a universal mystery she had tapped into. In search of more knowledge, in 2010 she earned a credential as a professional Sound Healer from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. After this training she began extensively touring with Vau de Vire Society, Champagne Productions, DreamWorld Cirque, Velocity Circus, Earth Circus, Entire Productions, and Supperclub International.
“Feather” has travelled the world as a circus pole acrobat, performing in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Beijing, Portland, New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis, New Orleans and Amsterdam. She specializes in eco-feminist pole performances. Utilizing a series of personas, each character is expressed through a unique combination of makeup, biography, story, costume, and music.
Today, she is the proud founder of Pole for the Globe, an online community platform for social change. Her patreon tribe’s motto is: “We believe in the equality of all bodies and protecting Mother Earth”. Currently, Pole for the globe is donating 15% of their proceeds to charitable organizations, and has donated over $10,000.00 since November 2017.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
I read a book about circus arts a few years back, “The Ordinary Acrobat” by Duncan Wall. In its pages it reveals something about funding for the arts that really made the light bulb go off for me. The reason why certain countries are so well known for circus (France, Russia, et. al.) is they all have significanty higher budgets dedicated to circus. Not dedicated to art in general, which they do, but a dedicated national circus budget. In the US, this budget is non-existent. All the art forms in the US are trying to nourish themselves at a very shallow trough for overall art funding. Obviously that trough is about to run dry as well so it’s an art ecosystem crisis here in the US. Bottomline: to help artists and the entire ecosystem we need funding that is stable and consistent year after year. Art is rebellion, freedom, and society’s reckoning with the passage of time and where we fit into our greater human history. It is not superfluous to society, it is society’s voice echoing off the walls of caves – both in the past and future.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I have had to work on perfectionism, as that was drilled into me at an early age. I have trained so hard in the gym and pushed myself so hard rehearsing for shows that I’ve ended up hurting myself – severely. These injuries put me on a path of rehab and healing. I’ve learned how to be forgiving, nurturing, self-soothing, and love myself in my myriad imperfections. The imperfections are the most authentic, the most human, and the best part! For many years growing up I felt like I wasn’t human, or meant to be a part of groups or society even. This was partly due to me being awkward in high school, sort of an outcast, and the 90’s grunge scene became my refuge from mainstream society. I still feel like a misfit, but I’m proud to be different and unique. Where as before I felt quite alone in the world, I now have a loving husband, great family relationships, a supportive art tribe/pole dance community, and some good friendships. I also have a liver-spotted Dalmatian named Ranger who just recently passed, but he is still with me every day. He is my little chocolate chip marshmallow love.
Contact Info:
- Website: featherpistol.com
- Instagram: @featherpistol
- Facebook: facebook.com/featherpistol
- Youtube: @featherpistol
- Other: patreon.com/polefortheglobe
Image Credits
First Tracks Productions, Shining Light Photography, Leah Marie Photography, and Philip Pavliger.