Josh Taylor is not your typical pole dance instructor. He’s a transformative figure who reshapes movement and perspective within the art form. A dancer who captivates instantly, Josh seamlessly transitions from discussing avant-garde fashion to passionate debates about art’s significance in modern society. In a revealing conversation, he shared his journey, his unwavering commitment to pole dance as a genuine art and practice, and his refreshingly authentic approach to both his craft and the world around him. This article is a testament to that insightful dialogue.
Picture by @portraitprojection @tomdingleyphoto
Unboxing Josh Taylor: Beyond Definition
To define Josh Taylor as a dancer is to limit him. He resists categorization, believing labels restrict artistic exploration. “Defining my dancing style would confine me, preventing discovery,” he explains. “My dance is what you witness, and that will evolve with each performance.”
He elaborates on this philosophy:
“Not everything requires explanation or a label. Some things are inherently clear and should remain so. Attempting to define them distances us from experiencing them directly. My dance is shaped by my experience and the audience’s perception—something beyond words. It simply exists, just as we do. You wouldn’t ask someone, ‘Who are you as a person?’, would you?”
My first encounter with Josh was at London Dance Academy in 2017, during his pole fitness and choreography classes. His skill and presence were immediately striking. His movement embodied every spin, and his intense gaze made each student feel individually seen and addressed. As a pole dancer of just over a year at the time, I felt overwhelmed by the stamina and technique required in his classes. Yet, I persevered.
In early 2018, Josh’s extensive 12-year career as a traveling pole dance performer and instructor took him away from London. Later that year, I saw him again in workshops and classes. Having dedicated myself to improvement, I felt less clumsy under his instruction. Aside from capturing a memorable photo with Josh (Exhibit A, below), my opportunities to be a regular student have been limited by his global engagements. I’ve followed his journey from afar, always eager to attend his classes whenever our paths align.
Josh Taylor Now: Paris and Beyond
Josh’s impact, both personally and as an instructor, sparked my desire to delve deeper into his story. When he announced his move to Paris to teach alongside the renowned Doris Arnold at OG pole showgirl, I seized the chance to interview him.
I connected with Josh in Norway, amidst packing his minimalist Scandinavian apartment. He shared his recent departure from a pole dance studio where he felt undervalued, describing the situation with characteristic candor. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Josh had been both a teaching and space director and a full-time instructor at this studio.
Arriving in Norway, Josh sought stability, a permanent space to work and live, after years of nomadic life as a traveling artist. However, it wasn’t meant to be. “I learned here that when you do things for others, especially voluntarily, they can start to see you as a servant,” he reflected. “This can diminish their respect for your time and value.”
The professional dynamic between Josh and his employer felt increasingly unbalanced. His investment of time and energy didn’t feel reciprocated. Quarantine amplified this imbalance, straining the relationship and diminishing Josh’s motivation.
He extricated himself, embracing a new chapter at Le Studio Françoise in Paris, anticipating greater appreciation for his art and dedication. He began teaching and managing the studio in Paris in November.
From Formal Dance to Pole: A Journey of Self-Discovery
Josh’s deep commitment to pole dance as an art form was evident from our first meeting. This passion, I realized through our conversation, has defined his entire dance journey. It’s a profound love for dance as a tool for self-improvement, self-love, and a fulfilling blend of work and passion.
Josh’s upbringing was marked by fear – fear of connection, rejection, and inadequacy. Dance became his sanctuary. “Dance was one of the first places I experienced pure joy, a joy that felt expansive, bigger than myself,” he recalls.
At 15, a crush on a dancer in a local company led him to a community show that captivated him. To get closer to his crush, he joined the company, despite initial challenges. “I was clumsy, awkward – my body felt large and ill-suited for movement due to social anxieties, and my fitness was lacking,” he admits.
However, his motivations evolved. “Initially, it was about attraction,” he jokes, “but as I engaged with dance, I discovered something that resonated deeply, a connection to everything around me. That was the spark that ignited my current path.”
Picture by @portraitprojection @tomdingleyphoto
At 16, Josh left home and school to work full-time in banking. By 18, he was managing a team of 40 older colleagues. Amidst this corporate life, with his bleached blonde hair and vibrant glasses, he lived in a shared house and taught weekend dance classes, navigating early adulthood.
He invested increasingly in dance, balancing full-time work with full-time training. A typical week involved working 7 AM to 6 PM, followed by three to four dance classes nightly, Monday to Friday, and six hours of classes on Saturdays. “I worked relentlessly,” he states.
“I wasn’t naturally gifted, so intense discipline was essential to even begin. I had no prior experience with exercise, my nervous system, coordination, and spatial awareness were underdeveloped, and my ability to learn and replicate movement was poor. Unsurprisingly, it was exhausting.”
The breaking point came one Saturday in spring 2008, during ballet classes at Pineapple Studios in London.
“I was struggling through intensive ballet classes, feeling completely inadequate. The teacher barely acknowledged me. Watching the advanced class finish, waiting for mine, I realized I lacked the stamina. I felt worthless. A pole dancing class was happening simultaneously down the hall. I thought, ‘Ballet is not for me. I’m going to go dance like a whore.'”
The class was led by Adam Jay (AJ) from PoleFX. Josh was immediately drawn to the playful atmosphere of pole dance, a stark contrast to the rigidity of formal dance. “It was the first time my joy of dance and playfulness merged,” he recalls.
From Injury to Pole Dance Career: Resilience and Reinvention
Josh fell deeply in love with pole dance, training weekly. It became both an emotional anchor and a catalyst for physical development. He decided to dedicate himself fully to dance, gradually reducing his involvement in the corporate world. He began assisting instructors, offering help with warm-ups, setup, and cleaning in exchange for classes, noticing a gap in their knowledge of broader dance training principles.
Within four months, he was leading classes himself, as instructors moved on or lost interest. The UK pole dance scene was nascent then. “Elite pole dancing at that time revolved around basic inversions, Jade splits, Allegra, and a basic handspring,” he explains. “I progressed quickly due to my prior dance training.”
Picture by: Millie Robson. IG: @millie_robson
Simultaneously, involvement in a rigorous Russian method ballet school took a physical toll. This experience significantly altered his path, solidifying pole dance as his primary career.
“My ballet teacher was harsh and critical. Constant remarks about my weight led to extreme calorie restriction, around 300-500 calories daily, while training at least six hours. I became emaciated, yet still taught pole on weekends for income.”
Within six months at the ballet school, his pelvis began to fail. During a contemporary class, attempting a pitch kick, his hip gave way.
“As I extended my leg for balance, it dropped. I felt it dislocate and then relocate within the hip socket. I collapsed, unable to stand initially. When I could, I left the room, trying to rotate my hips. It wasn’t painful, just deeply wrong.”
He was diagnosed with femoral acetabular impingement, where bone overgrowth on the femur neck rubbed against hip cartilage. “Ballet with poor technique severely damaged my hips and legs.” He spent 18 months awaiting surgery, unable to train in classical dance, even walking short distances caused significant pain.
Around 2010-2011, at 19, Josh taught at Ecole de Pole in London, then owned by Justine McLucas. Pole dance was surging in popularity, with events like Nelle Swan’s Pole Art Competition elevating contemporary pole dance globally. Pole dance was his only viable dance form, as he could use the pole to redistribute weight away from his injured legs. A pole career became increasingly appealing. He took over GymBox’s pole program, expanding classes from 45 minutes to 90 minutes.
Picture by Millie Robson – IG: @millie_robson
Dance was Josh’s priority. He supplemented his income by teaching pole across London and performing in cabarets. “From 17 onwards, I danced on tables in gay bars and engaged in borderline sex work to finance my dance aspirations,” he emphasizes. However, post-surgery, intended to resolve his hip issues, everything halted.
His post-operative pain worsened, hindering walking. Despite this, he returned to teaching at GymBox two weeks after surgery, unable to find a substitute. His first class back resulted in further injury.
“I was in severe pain and consulted my surgeon. He stated I’d be lucky to walk normally again, dance was impossible, and I needed to give it up.”
“I was devastated, terrified. Dance, my initial source of joy and self-love, was seemingly gone.”
Josh spent a year grieving, working as a receptionist at a Bikram yoga studio, focusing on physiotherapy and Pilates for recovery. This period forced humility and a deep technical analysis of natural movement.
This work enabled his return to pole. “If you don’t address your everyday movement patterns, posture, and the foundation of your movement, your potential remains limited. This is a weakness in pole, even now, as people often skip this foundational work,” he asserts.
That year of recovery was transformative, allowing him to return to pole with enhanced technical understanding and physical awareness. His passion for pole drove his resurgence, transforming him “from someone with limited potential to someone equipped with the knowledge and experience to cultivate potential.”
This knowledge informs Josh’s instructor intensives, where he guides experienced instructors to critically analyze movement, improving aspects like warm-ups and training methodologies.
Launched in 2015, his instructor intensive comprises five clinics dissecting pole class dynamics. His teaching method is Socratic, driven by questions and answers between him and students. The 16-hour program includes recommended readings for further exploration.
“My program is small, but I’m proud of its positive impact,” he says. He aims to expand it within five years, integrating pole into a broader human experience, beyond just a hobby.
The Dualities of a Traveling Artist’s Life
Since his return to pole, Josh’s career has spanned continents, stages, and studios, fueled by a dedication rarely seen.
“My greatest achievement is working across five continents – Europe, North America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. I’ve lost count of countries and students, but the sheer will to achieve this is significant.”
Pole dance, financially modest, demanded resourcefulness and acceptance of limited earnings, especially in his early travels. Residency systems were not prevalent when he started, requiring sacrifices.
“I had to be strategic in business proposals – offering to sleep on floors, teach diverse classes at standard rates, allowing studios to give their regular teachers breaks while gaining new perspectives. I’d send video demos.”
“For a decade, everything I owned fit in a single suitcase. I traveled wherever there was opportunity, accepting any paid work to pursue my passion. It meant sacrificing personal well-being. Eventually, sustainability became an issue, prompting the search for permanent positions.”
High points were significant. In 2013, he was a resident teacher at Body and Pole in New York. In 2014, he became, he believes, the first pole dancer to secure artist visa status in the US, officially recognizing pole dance as a legitimate art form by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
In 2016, at Pole Show LA, now Rise The Night, Josh, alongside Angela Nelson, assisted Brandon Grimm, the director, in choreographing a memorial performance for the Pulse nightclub shooting victims. They performed it together. In 2017, he spent seven months in an Australian residency in Adelaide, with frequent trips to Sydney.
Challenges were severe. Traveling between Asia, Europe, and the US, he contracted a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) skin infection. Subsequently, a bacteriophage in the infection produced Panton-Valentine Leukocidin, a cytotoxin leading to immune suppression, potentially fatal in up to 75% of cases.
He endured the worsening infection for six months before diagnosis and treatment, continuing to tour while battling PVL and MRSA. “My Pole Show LA performance is of someone with a months-long bacterial infection, performing with necrotic skin lesions the size of my fist. I still have scars from it,” he reveals.
Pole Show LA – Credit: Alloy Images
In 2013, while at Body and Pole, performing in Fire Island, New York, and for a contemporary dance company, disaster struck. The Friday before dance show rehearsals, at 3 AM, a spectator ran full speed into the pressure-mounted pole he was performing on, dislodging it from the ceiling. The pole, with the man clinging to it, crashed down, hitting Josh’s forehead, causing a concussion and splitting his forehead to the skull.
“I couldn’t go to the hospital due to my illegal work status. Being on an island, a helicopter evacuation would be needed, and I wasn’t risking deportation and a $60,000 bill! A drunk doctor, whose name I never learned, volunteered to stitch my head on condition of anonymity to avoid liability. I lost significant blood. The next morning, I woke at 8 AM, took the ferry to the mainland, taught three classes, and then ate excessively to recover. Monday morning, I began rehearsals for the show.”
Josh Taylor’s Perspective on Pole Dance Industry Evolution
Josh’s journey underscores the struggle to make a living through art, emphasizing the need for societal recognition and appreciation of art, including pole dance, for cultural growth and industry respect.
For Josh, pole dance is “a catalyst for self-discovery and liberation from shame.” He believes much of the industry is driven by a desire to transcend societal limitations imposed on women, diverse body types, and various backgrounds.
Pole’s uniqueness lies in its community-building aspect, particularly for women. “How many socially focused exercise forms exist for women? Very few besides pole dance,” he argues. “Pole creates an environment for friendship, connection, and challenging self-identity with minimal judgment.”
However, pole’s intimate nature can blur business and personal boundaries, complicating professional negotiations.
“The pole business often operates with a ‘family’ mentality, leading to participants projecting familial and community issues onto professional interactions.”
Furthermore, pole dance’s lack of mainstream artistic recognition impacts the industry’s self-perception as a serious, viable profession. Josh states, “The world dismisses what we do as trivial, unnecessary. But I believe without art, life cannot flourish.”
In a capitalist system prioritizing marketability, Josh views art, including pole, as a shared societal responsibility. The pandemic has highlighted art sector underfunding, reflecting a view of art as non-essential for survival. Josh attributes this bias to the business structures within pole, often run by individuals without artistic backgrounds.
“Until you fully embrace art’s value, both personally and communally, you can’t properly value it financially. This hinders creating appropriate financial structures to support our work.”
Josh adds:
“Without artistic and expressive language, how can we evolve and become our best selves for the world? I see this as vital. Humanity needs art for civilization to function and progress.”
For pole dance to realize its full artistic value, Josh believes the industry must embrace and respect strippers, rejecting the shame that marginalizes them.
“Stripping is absolutely art. We have a colonial view of art, prioritizing European ‘high art’ – opera, ballet, theatre, funded by aristocracy. But art isn’t limited to opera houses. It’s also in the mud. Street-level art is incredibly valuable. However, it’s not granted the status of ballet, for example, because pole and stripping serve not just artistic but social currency.”
Therefore, pole must absorb, respect, and value sex workers. He sees pole’s power to facilitate personal evolution as paramount. Projecting shame onto sex workers hinders our ability to confront our own internalized sexual shame. Integrating sex workers is crucial for societal healing from sexual shame: “If sex workers are not respected, how can we respect our own sexuality?”
Picture by @portraitprojection @tomdingleyphoto
Pole Dance Demands Hard Work
Josh’s self-awareness, dance journey, life experiences, and relentless self-improvement have shaped his current position. This informs his artistic beliefs, worldview, and understanding of the pole industry. He stresses that recognizing pole dance as art, as demanding work that needs constant growth, is crucial. “My biggest frustration with students is their expectation of a secret shortcut. The secret is simply hard work.”
He concludes:
“My abilities and confidence stem from hard work. A challenge in the modern pole dance industry is that some treat pole as a trivial pastime, expecting effortless progress.”
“I never accepted ‘no.’ I constantly sought teachers to guide me further, eventually realizing that you are your own primary teacher, learning from others along the way.”
“I’ve worked tirelessly for this industry, my place in it, and for this art form. That continuous growth is my greatest achievement.”
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