Photos by Nat Grammer
At the back of Southgate Roller Rink near the skate rental area, a group of scantily clad people removed a fiberglass tile from the ceiling. The stripper pole needed to fit somehow.
Chantilly “Tilly” Tempo, the host of the first-of-its-kind Roll & Pole event, glided around to check on the progress, the light-up wheels of her skates reflecting off her white knee-high socks. She wore a brown and white gingham bra and skort and a pearl-studded ribbon swished from her ponytail. Tempo, which is her stage name, was stressed. She wanted this event to go well. The future of roller-pole in Seattle might have depended on it.
Roller-pole, that is, the marriage of roller skating and pole dancing, may have been invented over 20 years ago in Australia, where there’s now a thriving community. But, roller-pole hasn’t hit its stride yet in Washington—or, at least, not out in the open. For the three years since she discovered it online, Tempo has been doing roller-pole alone in her basement.
Additionally, with links to both Seattle’s roller derby and pole dance worlds, Tempo believes the groups would jump at an opportunity to blend the skills. Seattle is ripe for a thriving roller-pole community.
Pole dancing in general has changed Tempo’s life, infusing her with self-confidence, sensuality, and creativity. She figures roller-pole, which is like pole dance’s quirkier cousin, could be a gateway for people who are shier about being sexy to access pole dance.
To make it happen, all Tempo needed to do was make that goddamn pole fit in the fucking ceiling.
Roller-poling to Find Oneself
I met Tempo in a Capitol Hill coffee shop with her two-year-old daughter. As a stay-at-home mom, Tempo doesn’t get much space to herself these days.
“I am super privileged because I get to stay home with them all day,” she says about her two children. “But it’s also exhausting.”
Her life is her kids’ life. Her time is her kids’ time. An entire day will go by where she doesn’t talk to an adult. Her brain, she tells me, feels like mush. It would be overwhelming if she didn’t have an outlet.
Three years ago, Tempo discovered pole dance. At the time, she was post-partum and a recent breast cancer survivor. Her relationship with her body and her sense of self had never been worse. Finding pole dance saved her.
“I can never say enough things about how much it’s done for my confidence, how I see myself, and how kind I am to myself,” she says.
The physicality of it strengthened her body, the sensuality allowed her to feel sexy again, and making up her own routines tapped into her creativity in ways she didn’t regularly access.
“I just know so many moms that have had kids, and then they speak so badly about their bodies or themselves,” she adds. “And I feel like the fact that I’m able to do [dance] has made it so I’m way happier as a mom.”
Discovering roller-pole deepened this passion for Tempo.
About eight years ago, Tempo discovered roller derby. She played Rat City Roller Derby’s B-team for about a year, and she loved how “badass” it made her feel. But she had to stop when she discovered she was eight weeks pregnant with her first child.
“I was pregnant enough where it was probably not a good idea to keep playing,” she says. “Then I didn’t go back to it after that because my husband worried I’d get hurt.”
She didn’t skate again until she learned about roller-pole. After she got a pair of skates for her birthday, she blended her two worlds and started skating around the pole in her basement. Now, whenever she needs to feel like herself and not just a mom, she’ll go down to the basement, blast pop music, and lose herself in roller-pole.
“It has a much more light-hearted and playful feel to it [than pole dance]. You can’t help but smile when you see it, and you’re smiling because you’re just like, ‘What is this?’ I feel like I’m on a rainbow doing roller-pole. It’s very whimsical. It brings out a little bit of your childish side, but it also requires so much strength and control—like immense amounts more so than just pole—because you have on skates that are so heavy.”
Roller-poling to Find Connection
At the rink, once the pole—a transportable stage pole—was secured, dancers climbed onto the platform with skates. Some wore their own, others, those who didn’t skate much, wore the tan rentals from Southgate.
They gripped the pole and used their wheels to spin around, then hoisted themselves in the air and contorted their bodies around the pole in feats of athleticism. One woman in an unevenly hemmed, mismatched plaid micro-skirt landed from a spin in the splits—on skates.
“Yeah, Barb!” a few of the bystanders cheered.
That was Barb. She and her friends from Writhe Pole Dance in Everett had made the trip south for the evening because they love skating, too. The pole dancers often skate together at Marysville Skate Center.
“A lot of people coincidentally roller skate in the pole community,” Ariel Motaghedi, a pole dance teacher at Mora Pole and Ariel in Lynnwood, says. “I think because it’s floaty.”
Plus, both sports are “flow” sports and have tricks to learn. Rollerskaters, specifically roller derby players, and pole dance groups had other similarities, too. According to Tempo, both communities are progressive, diverse, and heavily queer.
“Everybody tends to be very community-oriented,” she says. “It just feels like there’s so much of the same vibe.”
Many of the pole dancers-who-also-skate at the event had tried roller-pole before, but usually on their own in their homes, or in a studio setting. That didn’t compare to this event.
“The group experience is so much more impactful,” Motaghedi says.
A whole group had gathered to watch the roller-polers, cheering with every move. Over on the skate rink, people rolled around while others in the center of the rink did pole dance floor exercises, criss-crossing and opening their legs with their skates on.
Tempo gathered attendees’ names to see who would be interested in growing the community. After the event, Raven Studios, a pole studio in Georgetown, reached out to put a roller-pole class on the books for the fall. In the meantime, Tempo is planning another Southgate event for later this year.
At the end of the night, Tempo grinned. “Next time, we’ll have more poles.”
