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Inside Saskatoon Pole & Dance Studio, there are no velvet curtains or smoky backrooms.
There’s laughter. There’s effort. There are people learning how to hold their own body weight for the first time, discovering muscles they didn’t know they had and, perhaps more importantly, discovering versions of themselves they haven’t met yet.
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And yet, mention pole dancing in Saskatchewan and you’ll still get a reaction.
“I’ve gotten hilarious reactions when I say I own a pole studio,” said owner Sarah Longpre. “I’ve heard somebody yell ‘Pole?!’ from across the room.”
She says that reaction — half shock, half judgment — says more about the stigma than the practice itself.
The weight of assumption
Pole dancing carries baggage. For decades, it has been associated with nightclubs, dim lighting, dollar bills and a narrow definition of femininity. In Saskatchewan, where restrictive striptease laws still linger, that association can feel even more rigid.
“It is a hard conversation to have,” Longpre explained. “Talking to anybody from Saskatchewan, when you say, like, ‘Hey, I’m doing pole,’ the looks that I’ve gotten from people, just (show) the stigma that sits behind it There are people that make assumptions immediately.”
Sarah Longpre is the owner of Saskatoon Pole & Dance Studio. While she proudly shares her love of the art form, it initially took some convincing for her to give pole a try. “There were so many things that I told myself on why I couldn’t or shouldn’t do the class,” she recalled. (Submitted)
But step inside her studio, and those assumptions quickly start to fall apart.
There are no prerequisites here. No ideal body type. No required levels of strength or confidence.
“You don’t have to have a certain amount of push ups you can do. You don’t have to be able to touch your toes. You don’t have to feel sexy before you come in,” she said. “Everybody’s strong is different. Everybody’s sexy is different.”
That simple but radical idea is the foundation of what’s happening in this space.
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Strength, in every sense
Longpre said she didn’t step into this world with confidence. A friend kept inviting her to try a class, but for six months she found reasons not to go.
“I was 19 at the time. I lived with my parents, and immediately I was like ‘What would my parents think?’ And ‘I’m not strong enough,’” she explained.
“To me, this is my safe space,” Sarah Longpre said of Saskatoon Pole & Dance Studio. “This is where I get to be strong. This is where I get to be sexy. This is where I really get to discover myself, over and over again.” (Submitted)
Many of the women in the room share some version of that story. Not the same life, not the same background, but the same quiet doubts. Across the studio, that doubt appeared in different forms.
For Breanne Bevelander, it was the gap between how she was perceived and how she felt inside.
“I’ve always been perceived as really quiet and shy,” she said. “And I feel like pole has really opened me up.”
On paper, Bevelander doesn’t fit the stereotype of a pole dancer. She was an international cheerleader. Today, she’s working toward a PhD in cancer research.
But that’s the point.
“People think that pole dancers are like, dumb and hyper sexual and that kind of thing, but we’re all just people,” Bevelander explained.
Breanne Bevelander says she was first introduced to pole dancing 10 years ago, and it has helped her feel stronger and more confident. (Submitted)
Who gets to belong
If stigma builds walls, representation knocks them down. For Brianna Olfert, those walls showed up in the mirror.
“I’m a plus-size pole dancer. There are a lot more of us than you would think, but not visibly,” she said.
Before pole, Olfert said she already lived a life defined by discipline and performance with 13 years as an athlete, including five years at a high-performance level in fencing, competing internationally.
Today, she’s a full-time stay-at-home parent to a toddler. And still, stepping into the world of pole required a shift.
“Typically when you think of pole, you’re thinking of like these thin, beautiful, sexy people. And I’m thick and beautiful and sexy,” she said.
Brianna Olfert said she has sought out other plus size pole dancers on social media. Seeing other women in larger bodies participate in the sport has helped her feel more confident. (Submitted)
That realization didn’t come instantly. It came from searching, from finding others like her, and from slowly rewriting her internal narrative.
“I’ve been able to look at them and go, ‘Wow, like they look so beautiful. They look so strong. Oh, wait. They look like me. I guess I’m also beautiful and strong,’” Olfert said.
It’s a quiet revolution. One that happens not through grand statements, but through repetition. Class after class. Move after move.
Redefining limits
For Kendra Campbell, the barrier wasn’t perception. It was access.
“I was very much told what I can and cannot do because of my disability,” she recalled.
Born with ectrodactyly, a condition affecting the structure and function of her hands, grip strength doesn’t come easily for Campbell.
In a discipline built around holding, lifting and spinning, that could have been the end of the story. But it wasn’t.
Kendra Campbell was born with ectrodactyly, a condition affecting the structure of her hands and feet. Her disability hasn’t stopped her from exploring her passion for dance. (Submitted)
“I rely heavily on a false grip from my wrist, or climbing from my elbow,” she said, describing how she’s learned to adapt her movements.
Campbell works in health care, managing a physiotherapy clinic, and has spent years helping others navigate their bodies. But her own relationship with movement had long been defined by limitation.
Until her first class, that is.
“I went home and I cried,” she recalled. “I was just like, ‘I’m so happy.’ I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way before. It was just so freeing.”
More than a workout
It would be easy — comfortable, even — to reframe pole dancing purely as fitness. To focus on the strength, the flexibility, the athleticism.
“You can see the incredible athletes that we have,” Longpre said.
But that framing, on its own, misses something important.
In this studio, the professional stands next to the stay-at-home mom, the academic beside the athlete. And slowly, the assumptions, the doubts, the limits — they start to matter less. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
“When I first started pole, it was sold to me as a fitness routine,” Longpre explained. “But the piece to me that was missing is that nobody honoured where it came from.”
That acknowledgment matters, because the stigma didn’t appear out of nowhere. It’s tied to the history of the art form, to the people who built it and to the discomfort society still has with women who choose to express themselves on their own terms.
A different kind of strength
Spend enough time in the studio, and a pattern starts to become clear. The professional stands next to the stay-at-home mom. The academic beside the athlete. Someone who has always felt strong next to someone who has never felt strong at all.
And over time, those distinctions start to matter less and less.
“Dancing, as an adult, is one of my favorite things to host and to do,” Longpre said.
“Adults are showing up because they want to show up. They’re here because they can.”
“People think that pole dancers are like, dumb and hyper sexual and that kind of thing,” Breanne Bevelander said. “But we’re all just people.”(Submitted)
They are here, despite the stigma, because something about this space calls to them.
Back outside, the assumptions still exist. Someone still hears “pole” and fills in the blanks.
But inside, something quieter and more enduring is taking place.
A woman who couldn’t do half a push-up becomes an instructor. A researcher finds her voice. A mother reclaims her body. A woman once told “no” builds a new definition of “yes.”
“I want people to feel empowered, mostly, but also challenged,” Longpre said. “I want people to give themselves grace.”
And maybe that’s the real story here. Not what pole dancing looks like from the outside, but what it feels like from within.
Saskatoon Pole & Dance Studio is reshaping perceptions, offering women of all backgrounds a place to grow stronger, challenge assumptions and embrace confidence in ways that extend far beyond the studio walls. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
