Friends

 I love my friends...they are my true family scattered around the world...someone lost along the way...they accept me with all my defects and sometimes need of loneliness...I never forget our timeless shared emotions!

The myth of the Eternal feminine as a source of democracy - Iroquois culture

The myth of the “Eternal Feminine” could give an illustration of an alternative societal model, in my searches conveyed through deep insights aiming to spread out the knowledge of Iroquoian culture and its political structure focused on women pivotal role in every aspects of life. Citing  the Goethe in the Faust: "The Eternal feminine attracts us to the highest", reducing it to a gateway of salvation, a way of redemption from suffering and evil, and not forgetting the words of the Pope John Paul II that affirmed, “God is Father, and even more, He is Mother”, born from Holy Mary, beyond the dogmas or legends about her Virginity and Immaculate Conception, “the Quintessential Woman”, “the mystic rose”, revealing the maternal face of the god of boundless love, in an emphasis of the importance of women in society, blending spirituality with a compelling sense of poetry, magic, enchantment, transfiguration and mystery.

An early discovery of this myth clamorously started, before Christ, since the times of the Ancient Greeks and their way to hand down to posterity the legends of many goddesses they worshipped, as Aphrodite, goddess of love,  beauty, desire and fleshy pleasure, Artemis, goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, the animals, the forest and the moon, protectress of the virgins and the births without pain, Athena, goddess of  cleverness, peace and military strategy, Demetra, goddess of the harvests and nutrition, and the way they looked at them as a source that cannot be renounced bearing in mind their creative and generating power and, for this reason, affecting collective unconsciousness.

My essays mean to be an inspirational muse and a critical spectrum for political debates about new institutional models. In the Iroquoian culture, Gantowisas are the essential depositaries of the gifts allowed by our Universal Spiritual Mother, giving us a clear explanation of the meaning of this assumption, their necessary endorsement of responsibilities, their intrinsic mission to feed, to spawn and to develop human gender and species.

The myth in question  has assumed many faces: the sanctity of a mother, the purity of a virgin, the fecundity of the earth and the womb, and this wording, "eternal feminine" has been coined by Goethe to point out the timeless, unchangeable essence of feminine appeal, highly appealing because of her presumed divine origin, body and soul healing and her spiritual powers. Thus, femininity intended as a specific and distinctive sign, indicating a full array of qualities and skills, shrouding a wide multiplicity of peculiar behaviors and attitudes, that doesn’t need to be hindered, as it could be thought in a chauvinist mentality, behind a shelter, not being at all fragile creatures, thus inferior ones, but that, on the contrary, can and have, even more so, all the rights to effectively carry out any political, social, ecclesiastical tasks. Out-of-the-box examples of historical embodiments of this myth can be, i.e., Jeanne d’Arc[1], a religious legendary figure and visionary warrior during the Hundred Years’ War, in the XIII century, aspersing blood and death in the fight for liberation of France. She represented the only example of a woman to be both condemned and canonized as a Virgin Saint from Catholic Church, and that, following the example of his Christian God, even arrived  to martyrdom because of her beliefs.

It’s, thus, clear that Gantowisas can be included among feminist studies and the work done by many feminist movements in North America, both Usa and Canada, and in the world. On the other side of the ocean, we can’t forget France Simone de Beauvoir, pioneer of the ’68 French movement, with her “The Second Sex”[2], or “Le Deuxième Sexe”, whose literature mainly concerned sex-gender biological distinction in the social and historical stereotypes and that upturned the Sartre existentialist mantra[3], according which l’ésistence precede l’essence, into a new feminist one, “One is not born but become a woman”, “On naît pas femme, on le devient”, against all forms of patriachalism and dependency from men, in favour of a social redemption, an equal education and balanced role in relationships.

Another determinant element contributing to the history of female women rights, has been Emmeline Pankhurst that, at the beginning of XX century, founded the movement of the suffragettes to uphold the right of vote for women in public elections, finally achieved.

It’s been mainly following this pathway that the author wants to turn her interpretation of Iroquoian culture, mixing spirituality, legends, what can be described as historical examples of possessed people, explaining what can be meant as possess, with Gantowisas, that even descending their sacred powers from Sky Woman, are perfectly rooted on  planet Earth. What’s real and what’s transcendence, imaginary in their powerful healings and mystic realms? It’s evident how the power of mind and suggestions between thaumaturge and patient, or on their own, have a regenerating power, and how it can be amped up, galvanized in collective rites and ceremonies, between the shamanism and the religiosity,  in addition to the undeniable efficacy of natural remedies in comparison with ordinary medicines. Solutions that have far distanced the progress of modern traditional science and that have attracted proselytes and caused many pilgrimages from all over the world.

Thus, it seems to be the broader comprehensive feminist philology to lie into a disentanglement of the conflicting categories of sex, as proposed by Europeans, to place it under the Haudenosaunee “balance” in the replication of the Twinship principle, according which in Sky Epoch there were two outstanding examples of bonded pairs: on one side, Sky woman and her mother Lynx, symbolizing motherhood, and, on the other one, her and the two Twins, symbolizing brotherhood.  Both Twins were the creator of abundant life, as well as their female elders before them[4].

My personal perspective dares to be quite transcendental too, compelling myself to use a  cross-cutting lens to substantially attract the attention on the importance of the rights of women claims, often victims of abuses, tortures and suffering sterility, metaphorically encompassing all sorts of unproductiveness and unfruitfulness. These, in facts, although currently protected and proclaimed by the international community standards all over the world, are still hardly implemented  in many contexts, without mentioning the rights of Indigenous people that fortunately in Canada has had a better treatment than in the USA or other parts of the world. My utmost desire has been that of sheding light on what represents the inner essence of life, the straight sensitivity residing in every human being, made of a right balance game between its male and female components, and to widen the perspective about what “Mother Nature”, Iroquoian culture and the mentality of dialogue, openness and inclusiveness have to teach to all of us.

Gantowisas represents the propelling power that makes everything in society work well, in harmony and in peace, from economics, essentially trade, to politics, from the administration to legislation and justice, other than above all in the smallest but closest existing societal nucleus, represented by families.

She’s an active agent, not a passive victim; kinship is traced through the female line; children are raised up and adopted by women; she owns the lands, the crops and the longhouses, enjoys more privileges and greater freedom if compared not only with other American Indian women, but also with the so-called civilized nations. They run local Clan Mothers, hold all the lineage wampum, nominations belts and titles, detain exclusive rights over naming and impeach wrongdoers. 

In the words of a Cheyenne saying, in fact, “A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground”[6]. Although the European conquest of Native America,  Native women’s hearts are still beating. Moreover, also in the male dominant Lakota believes, women have a high status, not forgetting that for them the sun (Universal Father) and the Earth (Universal Mother)  were parental symbols of all organic life and the main element of the Great Spirit: creation. Nevertheless, plains women were more passive and dependent than Iroquois women and other matrifocal tribes[7].

The Sacred Hoop, or Medicine wheel, is another female element, according which “life is a cycle and everything has its place in it”. It represents the sacred circle of life, its basic four directions, and their associated elements. Each direction of the wheel offers its own lesson, color and animal spirit guide. Animal totems serve as guardians or ambassadors of each of the directions[5].

The Sacred hoop and circular perspective encompass all it could be considered as beauty, goodness and well-being in completeness, beyond any Manichean partition considering what’s coming from a God as good and from a Devil as evil, rejecting concepts as original sin, redemption, faith, heaven and hell. The hoop is a field containing energy, in order to make it won’t be dispersed, and that could gather in an indissoluble uniqueness the whole world, including both physical and spiritual creatures. In this holistic – biocentred  American Indians vision all the parts are interconnected according to the law of reciprocity. In Native Amerindian culture there’s a keen sense of respect towards all forms of flora and fauna, not only as the main mean of subsistence, but also in the belief that their preservation constitutes the base for the longevity of the planet. The hoop is sacred to them because it opens up the way of awareness. The shamans heal sick people by the use of what are considered by European people just simply magic gifts, not special medicines, through wizard powers in which are intrinsic a sort of “mystic potence”.

The nature of Native minds is global-holistic for its ability to identify themselves with all the complexities and to maintain these structures  in a dynamic equilibrium. He/she’s (God) is considered as just one of the living human beings, not a divinity. Indians don’t conceive the conception according which the being should be distributed along a vertical-hierarchic scale, including a lower level for plants, an higher one for animals and with humans at the top. All creatures are considered as brothers and sisters, sons of the Great Mystery and Mother Earth. They don’t operate any dualistic partition between what is spiritual and what is material, as both are seen and conceived as expressions of the same reality. By the use of the sacred hoop, they demonstrate how the Cosmogony works, how the laws of nature and the cosmos rule all human beings, the mysteries  of life and death, the mind and the individuality of the Self[8].

The purpose of “The Great Law of Peace”, the oral Haudenausonee Constitution, written on wampum belts, is to help us remembering the natural laws of creation fundamentally derived from Sky Woman, the spirit that informs equality and order other than beauty, health and goodness. In it is  recalled the Tree of Peace, or Tree of the Great Long Leaves, under which the Council of Fire of the Confederacy of the Five Nations, can sit to discuss their affairs. The Tree has four roots, the Great White Roots, one pointing at north, one at the south, one at the east and finally one at the west, symbolizing peace and strength. A certain numbers of shell (wampums) strings are given to each of the female families in which the Lordship titles are vested. In USA these strings represent the completeness of the union and certify the pledge of the nations (Mowaks, Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca) that all formed, into a unique body, the Union of the Great Law. They are also the symbol of the Council Fire. Moreover, the right of bestowing the title is hereditary in the family of the females legally holding them and the strings are considered the token that the females of the families have the right of property. The women heirs of the Confederacy Lordship title are called Royaneh (Noble) for all the time to come, and the Women of the Fifty Royaneh Families shall be the heirs of the Authorized Names.

Wampum belts are also used for storytelling. In these black lands surrounded by rocks and cliffs, among the hills of god and spirits, brightened up by the moon, they breath in the nature each day greater and greater sensations, instilling in them an unsoundable poetry that they can’t refrain to unavoidably transmit to the world. The used symbols  narrated a story in the oral tradition or spoken words. Since there was no written language, wampum was a very important mean of keeping records and passing down stories to the next generation, and were created to record treaties or historical events.  Wampum was durable and so could be carried over a long distance. They were also used as money.

The greatest part of Indian tradition is oral, although the European attempts to record and trace it, and, as such, so unclassifiable and uncategorizable, becoming for its fluidity and  hard reachability, unlikely to be sifted through a partisan or homologating critic. They are the outright free thinkers, unmindful even of the use of pen, they don’t need. Even poetries and songs, often onomatopoeic, move along the notes of nature. Even prayers, that they rattle off as a breath, are free. Thoughts that go beyond the walls. They don’t know repetitive novenas lo learn by heart or to brainwash themselves. The same sense of freedom invests their dances, and the so called rituals, that are never identical one another but are expression of a pure creative art form. They have given origin to the highest form of religious apostasy: the denial of indoctrination.

In the excursus of the juridical Iroquois panorama could be interested having an outlook on the main treaties binding them with Canada Federal Government and the International Treaties about the rights of the Indigenous people, minorities and women rights.

Furthermore, it could be interesting to analyze the fashion trends (the quirky and closely tribal Iroquoian outfits, especially for women, with their shawls, beads, furs, bangles and ethnic  tailored costumes) and even more their lifestyle, traditional music and folklore. 

 

Iroquoian culture, music and dance are all about celebration of life and thanksgiving to natural bless, brotherhood with all human beings and flora and fauna species, whose mimic and recalling is interpreted and somehow imitated bringing with them a sense of fusion and belonging to the land. Furthermore, they are sensitive about the impact dance movements can have on animals and their relationships with other people and the environment, the landscapes watching. American Indians see all creatures as relatives, as we all were the same children of a unique Mother, and as necessary they feel to be parts of an ordered balanced life, in a continuous search for the being fullness and completeness. Perceiving reality in a different way than common intended societies, conceiving time as a transcendental subsequence of Epochs, departing from the fall of Sky Woman on the Earth, if compared with its Roman Catholic measurement, that could seem not easily definable and not specifically quantifiable, they believe instead in something cyclical, they worship everything is rounded, spherical, rejecting linearity and In force of that, stemming from this circular, dynamic concept of universe in which all things are related and belongs to only one family, each song and ceremony tells the Indians that any creature is part of a whole and that all these parts are intertwined one another by virtue of their integral and effective participation. The healing chants and rituals are intense invocations of the restoration of wholeness and harmony, against the breakouts, splittings and derangements that can cause diseases and sickness. “Beauty is wholeness. Health is wholeness. Goodness is wholeness. And they are symbolized in the sacred hoop, which, not coincidentally, is a female symbol” as “life is a cycle and everything has its place in it”.

The role of woman, essentially emphasized and epitomized for being a life-giver, is associated with the springtime of the community. American Indians firmly believe that spiritual relationships are much more stronger and tightening than any others, and these strengthen blood ties, other than friendship and feeling of universal brotherhood. Hence, the awareness derives first and foremost from the relationship and dialogue with the Spirit, that joins the discrepancies, mends the scratches and puts in harmony the bodies with the souls, not only healing but unleashing a sense of lightness and freedom and instilling that impalpable sense of joy allotting them to ride the wave of original and creative rhythmical dances and to compose sounds that float them on the magical enchantment of pleasure, caressing the fluidity of the fusion. All that can be called as spirits or gods or metaphysical, occult forces inform in these little corners of the world, often forgotten, every aspects of the institutional frameworks and structures, interpersonal relationships, economy management and policy making other than habits and commitments of people, nowadays as in the past, since the mists of times.

Music and dance are especially intertwined with the elements of nature, especially that of the animals (birds, like robins, and fishes –fish dance) to underline the tie between heaven, land and water with the Universal Spirit. They take place in “powwows”, social gatherings that showcase aboriginal displays, food and crafts on reserves and urban centers across Canada, after the choice of the lead singer and musical treatment by the Clan Mother. The recognized festivals are the Midwinter, The Maple of Sugar-making, The Raspberry, the Strawberry, the Complanting, the Corn Hoeing Thanksgivings, The Little Festival of Green Corn, The Great Festival of Ripe Corn and the complete Thanksgiving for the Harvest.

These forms of art help celebrating, not only the gift of life, but also health, friendship and good times. They are joyful occasion useful to reinforce relationships also with non-native people. Iroquois songs has deserved serious consideration for long time. The children of longhouse have persisted in singing their old-time songs without much attention from white people  and we must thank the modern generations of  Iroquois for their willingness to put them in records.

What can be deduced undoubtedly is that it can’t be eluded and passed beyond, the strong Indians bonds with their lands, they even resemble into the colour of their skins and with which they feel to be as one, from which they stretch out, to which they take on luxuriance and even dirtiness, adaptability and steadiness and, finally, in which they are firmly rooted…the natural elements they are able to be tuned in, with which they continuously talk in infinite returning, circular  dialogues that disclose the mysteries of the awareness, from which they keep on learning erudite lessons, always different and new, whose they can read out the signs and secret messages guiding their deeds and addressing their thoughts, reshuffling their wittiness and intuitivity, with the slightness of the wind and the acumen of the eagle…whispers of nature echoing sentiments of universal god’s love they try to translate and remark in forms of beauty and art, imprinting the structural model of their society on this rudimental basic pattern.

[1] https://www.jeanne-darc.info

[2] S. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Gallimard, 1949

[3] Existentialism is a philosophical movement taking roots from Kierkegaard straightly believing that, adversely to Aristotelian school of thought, it’s responsibility of each individual to live authentically its own existence, independently from circumstances.

[4] Mann. B.A., Iroquoian Woman, Peter Lang, 2011, p.88-89

[5] Native American Medicine Wheel Legends and Traditions (learnreligions.com)

[6] Collins J., The Status of Native American Women: a study of the Lakota Sioux”;  Herring, Roger D. and Portman, Tarrell Awe Agahe. “Debunking the Pocahontas Paradox: The Need for a Humanistic Perspective.” Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Educating & Development. Fall 2001: 185-200; Allen, Paula Gunn, The sacred hoop: recovering the feminine in American Indian traditions, Boston, Beacon Press, 1986; Jaimes, Marie Annette. “Towards a new image of American Indian women” , Journal of American Indian Education [online] Oct 1982.

[7] Matriarchal Studies :: The Americas

[8] Minnella N., “Il sogno , il rito, l’estasi. Le vie del peyote degli Indiani d’America”, Massari Editore, 1998

              

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Who wanna be a cheesecake model? maybe a pin-up one...

                     

Nobody can be indifferent to the new phenomenon of pin-up girls or models, extremely popular in the English-speaking countries and somehow also penetrating in the Latin ones. Pin- up models...as "pinned-up" on the wall!

Who wants to escape from a dream like being a cover girl of a trendy magazines, having magazine spreads, calendars, posters, a centerfold in Billboards and commercial advertisements even only for one day in nowadays culture of image?

For me, all began when I popped for my first time at my arrival in London into a tattoo beauty parlor run by a close Italian friend of mine living there. After  troubled teenage years, constrained in a chauvinist mentality overwhelming all around me,  that brought me far away from the caring education cherished by my beloved aunties, that I remember, when I was a child, pulling vintage, especially art déco, bric-a-brac and garments from trucks and precious boxes, leaving me mellowly astonished and with my eyes full of dreams, three rounded cheesecake pin-up pics hung in his studio’s wall gets me personally and artistically inspired. What started out as a sign of destiny that would have changed my life.                                   

I rediscovered my love for this style and had my first sexy vintage photoshoots in Mayfair, Milan and Rome, posing for friends and professional photographers, working for many companies, having my lessons of burlesque and basic pole dance, even hoping to try some competitions but I was not so athletic, maybe I didn't have much time to dedicate myself in training my body as a soldier and I've always been reluctant to strict techniques in the expression of my body...so I started to act, to pose, to mock inside with a bit of austerity, to have my catwalks and above all to write on it...

Armed with a tube of red lipstick, snug pencil skirt, devastatingly high heels, I found to have a mission: to give my contribution in bringing glamour and sex-appeal to the world! Full luscious lips, voluminous red hair reflecting all of my personality like anything else and the perfect curves…for me all is concerning Pin-up girls, vintage and burlesque is about emotions and glamour! I can’t never get enough of it!

I slowly moved also into freelancing with photographers which led me back in front of the camera. Modeling has been one of my greatest passions and I keep on loving pictures.

I simply adore this style that embodies my ideal of femininity: slender with slight ample bosom, skinny hips and little tender bottom (size 3-6 years), with torso shape tighten in wasp-waist corsets, changing and playing with my hairstyle, making photographic portraits as in pen-and-ink Gibson style, whose main symbol was a sophisticated Camilla Antoinette Clifford, or as in the cheesecake photography.                                     

I started to dream about about these clad, sexually attractive women wearing girdles in refined clothes as Dior, shopping in Fifth Avenue, or portrayed by Vargas, in all their declination of style leading to bombshells, that brought somehow comfort to troops involved into the WWII with their stylish poses and seductive glances. They were for the first time considered symbols of an open sexuality with their corseted narrow wasp waists in the era of the Hays code.

Moreover, it has become an incredible fashion: people like me are more and more attracted by this kind of TV shows, go to cinema, theatres and dance halls to watch these performances... they read out books about it, they blog about it and meet up in special places listening to rockabilly music just to enjoy the revival of golden age Hollywood stars and one century ago covering  myths!

I managed to be a self-trained pin-up photographer, vintage hair guru, an improbable make-up artist, painter, artworker...  I've found my personality was up for anything and ready for new transforming experiences! Nevertheless, although being also a photographer myself, I have found have much more fun on the other side of the camera!                                         

I stuck in my mind an unavoidable to do list!

I started grooming myself like I was going on my honeymoon, shaving, waxing, tweezing, trimming anything was needed, painting my nails, wearing garter belts and stockings, even restyling and building a proper “pin up personality” in a different key than in the past, practising flattering poses and generating pleasure...even when the quality of the image could suck, retouching photos could be a good expedient, always remembering that Photoshop is a tool, not a miracle provider!

If you can't do it by yourself, carefully choose and pretend to trust your personal photographer! He can help you by the use of technologies to get the result we want, including cameras, special effects and filters, if he can't catch the perfect emotion of the moment!

Furthermore, opening up my wardrobe and fill it with anything lacks or it's proper to my day mood, making my personal make-up, never forgetting eyelashes and to look sexually alluring with a slight vein of innocent and coquettish charm... 60 minutes photo session for approximately 75 shoots for a perfect style for me it's too much...2 minutes and I get it!

A set of modelling pics are often the basis for pin-up paintings! The depth of these portraits comes from somewhere ancient in you, and these photos totally tell the story behind them, snapping the movements, the facial expressions mixing originality with fantasy!

This is the kind of process I like to get inspired by when I paint colours, textures, sceneries and personification of what is in my mind with pencils, brushes or digitally, although technology sometimes restrains the creativity flow, not always working well!

This pin-up obsession’s brought me to stay on network with other models and photographers and “talking to people that are into the culture”, also participating in online groups, being generally involved in burlesque, or rockabilly, past re-enactments as important elements of pin-up fashion.

I don’t certainly expect this to be a magical short-cut to a life of glamour and marabou-trimmed negligees or an escape from a boring life (...you might get paid for photoshoots, but it couldn't be enough to pay your expenses) but the exaltation of feminine sensuality and a reboosting of the personality in a, sometimes, dehumanizing society. It’s nothing about really being a celebrity for other people but above all for yourself!

Words are out… the fruits of this labor is definitely an healthier diet  and a strong dedication to the refinement of my look!!! 

I feel it could be a blessing experience for every woman and I think the whole matter is cool!

Perhaps, it will never make of you a billionaire but for sure it stimulates your creativity, make you leave more space to feed your dreams and continually reinvent your sensuality!

Fitness Journeys: Marion Crampe on the pole!

                    

Some Italians could have seen her at Milan Pole Dance Studio, others in her performances during the National Pole Dance Championship and many others have had the pleasure to meet her during one of her frequent workshops.
I’m going to introduce Marion Crampe, alias Mlle Jeanne, French international poledance champion. She’s a marveilluse artist, a dancer full of energy that is doing her utmost as a teacher as well as a performer.
This year has been really busy for her, artistically and professionally, working hard within the MPDS team. She trained herself a lot to enhance her technique as a contortionist on her own style. She keeps on travelling a lot, meeting people all around the world and sharing her passion with them. At the beginning of the year she was in Rio de Jainero Ultra Modern Dance School, in South America, and several workshops will be held in several South American countries. That’s why she’s also learning Portuguese and samba for her sexy chair courses, waiting for 2016 Olympic Games!Then she moved to South Africa and came back to Europe to hold other lessons and next steps will be US and Canada! In particular, this summer she’ll be at the Summer Pole Camp on July with Natasha Wang,  an aerial pole performer who currently holds the titles of US Pole Dance Champion 2011 and USPDF West Coast Champion 2010.
Marion pole style is very similar to a classical dancer because she moves fluidly with lightness on and off the pole with precision and beautiful lines. Her favourite move is “The eagle” and “Rainbow Marchenko”. She normally prefers to be focused on combos instead of single moves, where she believes to be able to deploy better her creativity. She doesn’t mind performing “Music box", being her target is to reach the same level of contortion of the great Felix Cane, an Australian professional dancer and world champion pole dancer, Cirque du Soleil performer, master instructor. She admits she particularly loves those moves that allow the contortion of the body moving ahead, even though she’s convinced are all sublimes by the use of flawlessness, flexibility and mastered tricks.
She loves paillettes, her physiotherapist without which she could never stay... and, why not, money!

 
                              

Her preferred outfits are a simple bras, sexy shorts and her platforms. They form an integral part of entertainment. Her fans help her keeping her body warmed and to hold the pole because she doesn’t love poledancing when it’s cold. She rather prefers it's very hot, to grip better the pole and to feel more flexible.
To perform she loves a rock lent music repertory or soft sentimental love ballads. She needs to feel emotions gushing from the song before dancing on it. But she also likes the vibe of the moment.
During her free time she keeps on dancing, more than going clubbing, with her friends but she also loves  night events when she dances any kind of music, as easy in the South of France more than in Paris, although she actually lives and spends the most part of her time in Milan.

Working along with lots of creative artists she brilliantly succeeds in incorporating some of the emotional notes she feels right into her choreography in a very flowly and lyrical way. But above all she can't help falling in love with this art, the pole, to which she's dedicated her whole life. Her secret wish when she was a child was to be a dancer. She prefers reading a book rather than watching tv, listening to any kind of music, especially " Iris" by Go go dolls, and eating grilled chicken cooked by her Dad.  She's had a series of successes:

·          Her participation to 2011 Canberra Competition
·          NPAPC Nottingham Pole Association Competition in November 2011
·         Top 5 finalist at I World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Sept 2011
·         Finalist in Pole Art Competition in Helsinki, September 2011
·         Best Show Award at Aerial International Competition in Bern, March 2011
·         First runner up at French Pole Championship 2010
Starting her career with classic ballet & ballet jazz, Marion pioneered and experimented several kind of styles within the dance panorama, such as, i.e., street jazz and hip hop with BenamaraTayeb. In 2004 she graduated with a Master on Sport education while continuing her dance, training in the famous school James Carles. She also participated in many shows (cabaret, hip hop as well as musical comedy, such as “West Side Story” with Gilles Ramade). In 2005, in Paris she joined several fitness centers, like Fitness First, Club Med Gym, Moving & Forest hill, as a private trainer & fitness instructor - training and rich experience making of her a master in various styles of dance - but it was the year 2006 the real turning point in her life, since, pushed by a titillating curiosity, she had her first pole dance class at the Paris Pink Paradise Pole School training with another French pole dance star Laurence Hilsum. She fell in love with this art at once and started teaching six months later. In her opinion, poledance is an art form. Her Austrialan pole dance mentor Liana after having shared every secrets of this art, trained Marion to build the dancer she is today, till  becoming nowadays pole dance rising star at an international level. She’s both an athlete and an artist. Her performances stand out the highest competitions primarily because of her execution, then because of her refinement.
 Experimented the art of pole dancing in France, the belief that dance is sensuous and graceful and all women are endowed with this gift to unravel their sensuality’s grew up in her.  Some say dance is the language of the body and Marion argues dance is the language of the soul. She’s the epitome of femininity: an enrapturing smile, smooth lips, seductive eyes will make any man melt. Climbs and grips around the pole, slow contortions and speedy routine making her own hair whip wildly, with his unmistakable touch, at the same time powerful, elegant and sexy, could melt the ice-cold pole. Her near impeccable technique gives her the grace of an eagle and a princess of the stage.
Moreover, in the 2010 French Pole Championship where she won the first runner place in the French PoleDance Competition and on Sept of the same year she was guest performer in the showcase of Pole Art Competition in Stockholm organized by Nelle Swan and Tanja Suni. In fact, although in the path was more associated with strip clubs, pole dancing tracing its roots back to traveling circuses, when dancers used the poles that supported the tents. It has lately become more accepted as a form of working out and recognized as a prestigeous sport and in Rio de Jaineiro 2016 in Brazil it will be finally crowned as an Olympic Game .
Since October 2010, she was leading teacher at Milan Pole Dance Studio contributing to pole dance knowledge and expansion in Italy and in the World. Marion is now working on her aerial acrobatic skills with hoop and silk, among other specialties such as trapeze, rope and hammock. She also a contortionist mixing in her style a Burlesque glam, circus and sexy Australian touch. She has still remained an active member of the French Pole Dance Team, a group of the best French pole dancers Prana Ovide Etienne, Manuela Carneiro and Doris Arnold. She participated to the POLE DANCE SUMMER CAMP‘s second edition in St Marteen – Palm each, in which she looked fabulous, like an heron, in all her breath-taking allure, performing “Les dooblettes” with the world’s top pole dancers. Emotion and vulnerability comes with her together on the stage to create something she defines as magical pole art. I think she’s taken me out of just thinking about general dances, her poledance performances are very uncommun. She makes me to remark the importance of a good choreographer, creating a sort of trajectory in a performance that covers all the time the whole show, from the beginning to its end. He could teach not only to think about each move and why it’s there, making sure it makes sense within the show in each particular moment and how its collaboration could be significant to the dancer, but also how the nature itself could play the most important role in the surroundings as well in the spirit of the dancer.
She bagged a place among the top 5 after the I WORLD CUP in Rio de Janeiro in September 2011 and the second runner up place in the French championship this year. She was also finalist in Pole Art in Helsinki in October 2011.                
Moreover, the MPDS Marion Crampe has recently taken part in the “poledanceitaly” project for the issue of an online poledance dictionnary, completely free,  setting up several tricks where it is easy to find each move scheduled for each category and level of difficulty. Additionally to the pics, a short clip shows how each move is performed from the start to the end. It could be also a quirky peculiarity to find how moves can be chosen on the base of physical requirements necessary to perform them.
Marion Crampe looks like a fairy, breaking down at the center of the stage, charming and powerful, starting sliding up and down the pole in her shining, lyrical pole routine. Her acrobat dance leaves the amazed public totally hooked with the grace and elegance of her movements that seem to caress the air she runs across. It sounds like a cliche’ but she seems to bring her personality gifts from the inside out.
The Pole Art gets inspiration from many other forms of dance and other sports (such as rhythmic gymnastics, stationery rings), that involve and enhance endurance, muscolar strenght and flexibility. It’s an anaerobic and aerobic training whose stunts allow you to burn lots of calories building your body strenght with great toning and sculpting benefits for the best possible grips and moves coming out flying or in equilibrium, training each muscle of your body. It’s a sport that allows you to keep fit, toning and amuzing yourself, building confidence in your body and personality, redescovering your sensuality.
We face in this sport with Professional and Amateur, Couple and Disables categories. Many awards are also given to the best musical interpretation, best costume, coreographer and entertainer.
Crampe reckons it’s the pole dance itself to have destined and designed her slender toned body, this sport requiring well trained biceps and very strong abdominals. In addition to this, standing up straight on your ankle involves hamstring muscles, gluteal and abdominal workout.

Marion Crampe, is not only well gifted of all these physical qualities by mother nature  but is also really lovely, patient and has a very good sense of humour. She’s completement detached and disinhibited. She’s beloved by many gooey fan girls and counts out about 2000 astounded friends on Facebook for who she’s a sunray! Always good tempered and smiling, she has a slight southern french accent and a great sex appeal !

She turned into a full-fledged love affair with Poledance, as we said, when she arrived in Paris in 2006, enchanted by showbiz and nightlife sparkles. How we could blame her? Pole dancing is the latest addictive phenomenon sweeping the nation, and Pole exercise brings you really impressive elements, such as the spins, poses, body inverts and floor work on the pole. Women and men contorted into unimaginable shapes, instructors and students seemingly levitated. These human beings seem to achieve the impossible.

Her point of strength is her flexibility, as well-known above all on her torso and shoulders, and in Milan’s having a full immersion in contortions, doing them over and over, as she manages to go much further onwards. On the other hand, her weakness is a certain lack of power and sometimes energy, features she must develop and on which she should work but not so hard. Moreover, her performances change, depending on her style, always exploring the endless possibilities of her body.She’s all about grace, strength and passion. She has flexibility, technique, creativity, dynamics, eclectic movements and years of dance training and commitment – all of which combine to make her, in many people’s eyes, one of the absolute best in the world.
She trains her muscles for hours everyday in front of stunning floor-to-ceiling mirrors in which she can check and correct their form, make sure her moves and lines are perfect! She knows how nerves can get the better of you having a swing on the four metre poles!
Her musicality is astonishing - when she dances with a simple dancehall song with a repetitive beat, she finds the undercurrent and rides it with tiny accents climbing herself up the pole backwards and having fabulous head dives, really surprising and exciting to watch. Her lyrical style is sometimes emotive, always sensational! She performs every routine or freestyle from the tips of her fingers all the way to every pointed toe. She creates imaginary lines with her body that you couldn't even think to be possible.
My goal here is to try to give you all an overall idea of the development of her career and to share some of her unique perspectives on dance and moves. Well, make sure then to keep you updated on all this blurry flurry of activities, just stay tuned in her various social networks and pole dance online forums and websites and don’t miss out next Marion Crampe events! Just to have no qualms…you could never forgive yourself!

Uncertainties of voyage- Kerouac mental pilgrimages and the concept of beauty

Who has not plunged in his thoughts and intimate reflections during a long trip or a journey along a green or sandy landscape or a seaside starring at the light blue waters? Today our generations, I guess, are more involved in this topic than the past ones, in which it was a rebel trend or habit due to a quirky inner globetrotter nature or to an impulse of escape from reality. We are scattered at the four corners of the earth for any ordinary exigence, for work and personal, sentimental and routine reasons. A travelling addiction influenced by the change of nowadays social system, more interactive, dynamic and with any sorts of boundaries. This is the era of the great challenges in which we are called to get up from our sedentariness and routine habits to kick off moving to work and to live away, often for a short while, here and then. That’s why a revival of beat generation literary and art works style is on the stage, becoming one more time popular. We can’t avoid to evocate authors as the ‘50s American writer Kerouac, of, it-goes-without-saying, French Canadian origins, people of immigrants, pioneers and explorers other than great liberal democrats that have idolized values as democracy and diversity as the greatest symbols of freedom and mottos of a free multicultural country.

Kerouac is the author of “On the Road” with his famous insight on “Route 66”, based in USA, focused on the pilgrimage of beat characters in search of new hitch-hiking experiences. This autobiographical novel is the “Beat Generation” Bible, whose expression was coined by himself to identify an attitude of escaping from contemporary conventional society just to find nothing at the end of their journey.

It is an attempt to record the details of daily life and the spontaneous enthusiasm for insignificant objects and events, introducing “hip language”, slang and colloquial words, abolishing syntactical rules and allowing free mental associations. Similar, but characterized by more spiritual connotations, was “The Dharma Bums”, that highlights the discovery of the truth or dharma through Zen Buddhism. He represents the mystic anxiousness and wish to make of daily life an endless discovery of new wild experiences. They live of “kicks”, as they describe those moments of intense experience and pleasure, free from all social and economic restraints to overcome the sense of void and fears. Beat generation explores, first of all, the nudity impulse and unrestrained sexuality, pushing their senses beyond the limits of understanding, sometimes taking hallucinating drugs to explore any possible landscapes. The Beatniks often attract for their attention to strange informal dresses, worn-out jeans, old t-shirts and sandals, long hairs and sometimes personal cleanliness. They advocate pleasant escapism and create an underground culture characterized by spontaneous flow and freedom of expression, poetry and oriental Buddhism, their keen interest in music, strangely also including jazz which was also highly appreciated.   

Based in lands where the myth of American Dream is still alive, these values are then embodied in bulwarks as Philadelphia, town of the famous Jefferson Declaration of Independence and its slogan “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”, all rights recognized “for right of nature”.

Turning away from the cultural dependence on contemporary stereotypes, Kerouac used imagination as a mean to give expression to emotional experiences not accountable to the reason, exploring the endless possibilities of humankind and penetrating subconscious levels through dreams and drugs representing the world in a new undetached interpretation, not twisted by a new, often too much ticking, nowadays sense of civilization. He expressed emotional feelings in a continuous attempt of mediation between man and nature, giving voice to the ideal of beauty, truth and freedom, not disregarding reality, appreciating the naturalism and the descriptive richness of elements present in landscapes, often mirroring his moods and feelings. Nature, then, as a “living force”. He also presented a pantheistic vein in his writings, believing it could express a universal language overflowing from inspiration and a triggered stimulus to thoughts, being a source of comfort and delight for the observer, sometimes conveying spiritual intuitions.

This romantic subjects of the beat generation are deep-rooted in poetry authors as William Blake, Keates and Whiteman, that identified bucolic sceneries with subjective moods, slightly upsetting, shacking and splitting them off because of the mysterious sense of unknown. The concept that beauty resides in what you see is the central theme of Keats poetry, especially inspired by the classical Greek world. The expression of beauty is the ideal of all art forms and it represents a never-ending joy. It proceeds from senses, concrete sensations that he discovered in the colours the nature displays, in the sweetness of its perfumes, the curves of a flower, a woman, a butterfly, all reproducing an afflatus towards eternity. It’s easy to find in the beat generation odd traces of romanticism and is beyond any doubt a rejoice of imaginary. In Keat’s view, the poet shouldn’t be identified as the source object of inspiration or the place where truth resides. Denying this capability is the basis of human knowledge that spontaneously leads the reader to the beauty and truth unleashed by poetries.

The assumptions that voyages fertilize imagination was already well exalted by  William Blake in his declamation of the pursuit of happiness and pleasure beyond any restrictions of morality and religion. This was on his turn inherited by Diderot and Voltaire and Swedenborg with who he shared his belief in the illuminating powers of visions. In fact, poet was essentially conceived as a visionary prophet, and the possibility of progress relies in a tension between opposite states of mind, in taking our own personal certainties at stake, not in a predominance of the undebated supremacy of one over another. He considered that a broader thinking perspective, not simply perceptions, although inspired by them, as a mean through which man could better learn the world signs and directions, riding “Divine visions” that let you look further the mere reality. This theory was also followed by Edgar Allan Poe that saw even in madness a higher level of awareness and put in evidence the dichotomy between beauty and death, creation and destruction. He highlighted that an exceptional acuteness of the senses, as a result of an expanded consciousness, can make you lose your sanity, in certain conditions and if strictly attached to a narrow perception of life.  

Boéhiamians were also witty observers of reality and were focused on which is the sense of beauty and the beauty of senses. They were plunged into the masses and proletariat to which they conveyed their ideas and with which they didn't stop to compare, while dandies displayed bourgeois art as a cult of beauty that could prevent the murder of the soul from ugliness of decay, in a classist interpretation. However, Beat Generation, Boéhiamians and Aesthetes together conceived man as an alien in a materialistic world where beauty can rescue people and it's eternal.