Why You Should Try Exotic Pole Dancing and Other Pole Styles
Exotic pole dance embraces sensuality and musicality. Put on your heels and weave your magic around the base of the pole in a sexy styled exotic pole. Combine low spins and floor work, body rolls and head flicks.
The term exotic pole dance is often used interchangeably with stripper style or Classique. However, is there a fine difference between each style? We take a look below.

What's The Difference Between Stripper, Classique and Exotic?
Classique
I read recently that Classique is ‘clean’ sexy. If you can have clean and sexy at the same time? It’s graceful, fluid and flexible. Beautiful shapes and seductive movement are displayed.
Think multi-trick combos, spinny pole and splits and floor work.
Classique is all about creating fluid movement and beautiful shapes on the floor or in the air. Front, middle or straddle splits are plentiful with the trending tricks on show.
This is the type you will see in most pole competitions as it’s the most friendly version of the pole styles discussed on this page.
It’s a bit of a mash-up of stripper and exotic featuring tricks, flexibility and audience engagement. It’s also not in your face so you are unlikely to offend too much. But get a wow factor as well.
This is the go-to style for mainstream sexy pole and can be seen in many of the biggest pole competitions such as Pole Theatre and Miss Pole Dance Australia.
I read recently on Maddie Sparkle and Michelle Shimmy’s dance academy page that “exotic” is not acceptable terminology to describe the dance style they teach on their online academy. And they have changed their wording where possible to say “sexy acro”. Some have described exotic as being all about the equipment so sexy acro does kind of make sense.
Exotic
Exotic pole dance is a style linked with the Russians who display amazing skills and strength around the pole.
The performance is all about technical complex low flow, moves that require a lot of strength and crazy transitions. The sort of performance that wows, leaving the audience saying OMG.
You’d expect to see deadlifts, flips, handstands, power spins – think phoenix plus leg traces and threads.
Sequences will include lots of low flow, choreo around the base of the pole and lots of tricks.
Strength moves will be executed so they look effortless, using an economy of motion. Perhaps they will create new, interesting and exciting ways to move around the floor.
Olga Koda is the perfect example of someone who performs this style in pole competitions.
Stripper
If any style of pole dancing is going to offend then this sexy style of dancing is the one as it is the racist category. Some have said that it just stumbles over the line of being a little too much. It’s sometimes just a little indecent. It can be sultry and sensual or hardcore and banging.
Watch and you will see lots of heel clacking, twerking, body rolls, eye contact, the removal of clothing, self-touching and a filthy sex face to top it off.
Stripper style focuses less on the tricks that everyone is learning and more on sexuality and entertaining the audience.
This is the sort of exotic dance you are going to find in strip clubs and less so in pole competitions.
Competitions like dance filthy go some way to let dancers show this style of dance.
Five Reasons to Try Exotic and/or Classique Pole
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You’ll become addicted to the flow
Many girls including me don’t feel that sexy, they feel a bit embarrassed about it all and/or they lack musicality – don’t hear the beat and are not sure they can dance.
There is nothing to be scared of. Give it a trial run and you might find that you then need to start incorporating it into your daily life – or at least once a week. You may just find yourself dancing to the music whenever you find yourself next to the pole.
You Get To Wear Heels
Yup, you get to wear heels! 6, 7, 8 or perhaps 9-inch stripper heels – or pole dancing shoes as we like to call them. Once you try starting to dance in beautiful platform heels you will become addicted it makes you feel like a million dollars. And practice makes perfect, right?
You’ll learn super cool flips and tricks
Just like pole fitness or sport (which is the mainstream style you will come across around the world) when learning exotic pole dance you will learn cool flips and tricks. Essentially you will learn routines that incorporate floor work, spins around the pole and tricks that may involve some crawling, sliding and flipping.
You’ll learn how to move gracefully
With this style of pole you learn a routine, you move from one move into the next. Not just perform a trick get down from the pole and learn another one. You learn to move with the music.
Learn how to gracefully twirl on the floor, kick that leg up, and spin on the pole.
It allows you to explore your sensual and feminine side
Pole dancing has always had a sensual side to it since girls started dancing around the tent poles. Men did tricks on the Chinese poles we believe before that. So pole dance may be a mash-up of the two. Exotic pole specifically teaches you to dance sexily around the pole fining your inner sexy and feminine side.
Can you Take Online Exotic POle Dancing Lessons?
If you’re desperate to learn exotic pole dancing there are a number of ways you can learn. You can follow some of the big names in exotic dancing via Instagram, find clips on youtube or there are a couple of schools that have taken their exotic dancing lessons online.
We’ll be expanding this section later. Check back soon we’ll soon have checked out the providers.
Are there Any Exotic, Stripper or Classique Pole Competitions?
Yes, there are a few. Dance filthy, Pole Theatre and Exotic Generation are all competitions that embrace exotic or the sexy side of pole dancing. Which will you compete in? Take a look at each of the competitions below.
Dance Filthy
The original Dance Filthy is based in Sydney, Australia and is owned by Michelle Shimmy and Maddie Sparkle. The competition is now operated as a franchise and is available in the UK, France and the USA.
Pole Theatre
Another competition that originated out of Sydney, pole theatre was the brainchild of Australians Michelle Shimmy and Maddie Sparkle. The completion has four categories, one of which is Pole Classique where performers celebrate the beauty and art of sexy/sensual style pole dance and striptease. Contestants must wear heels for at least part of their performance and are required to remove at least one item of their costume.
Since the first competition in 2013, there are now over 20 international competitions across the world.
Exotic Generation
This international festival claims to be the world’s largest pole show that unites Exotic Pole Dance professional dancers from all over the world.
The creator and ideologist of the festival were Tatyana Marsheva. The first festival took place in Moscow in 2016 and has become an annual festival.
Since the first EXOTIC GENERATION a number of other countries have set up their own exotic generation festival. The winner of each festival can participate in the Moscow festival without video selection.
Countries that hold Exotic Generation: Ukraine, Italy, Israel, Poland, Germany, and France. In 2019 festival were due to take place for the first time in the UK and the USA however Covid prevented them from taking place.
There are several categories including Exotic FLOW style, Exotic OLD SCHOOL style, Exotic HARD style, EXOTIC MEN, Exotic DUET, EXOTIC SHOW GROUP and
STRIP SHOW GROUP.
Others
The Authentics or The Supreme Poledown
Which Style will You Choose?
We’ve group pole styles into 3 main styles, but there are many subcategories. Then depending on where you are in the world or what pole school you go to there might be more than one name for each sub-style.
Will you choose the racy stripper style, technically difficult exotic or a mix up of the two, Classique?
Sophie Green has been pole dancing and aerial arts at home and in studios around the world for over 13 years. She’s taken a number of instructor courses in pole and aerial. Plus attended a course on rigging. She takes part in lots of exercise.