POLE DANCE: BUILDING MEANING WITH THE BODY
Pole Dance, body, Physical Education
The Pole Dance body culture has gained many supporters over the last few years in Brazil as an alternative to physical exercise since its benefits are already known and proven both by the population (informal empirical knowledge) and by the academic literature. Among the benefits can be highlighted strength, flexibility, strength gain, weight loss, mobility/flexibility, self-esteem, creativity, motivation, self-efficacy, etc. On the other hand, Pole Dance is sometimes seen in a controversial and polemic way, sometimes associated with dance clubs and strippers, sometimes as physical activity, leisure/recreational, a sport or an art. In this context of multiple meanings, when bodies come into contact with the bar (mast) they become “meat in the world!” build stories and meanings, experiencing new sensations, then various possibilities and intentions emerge, narratives, representations, the imaginary and symbolism are free, drawing and allowing its practitioners to learn with the body new senses and meanings through their own bodies and with the world, in this way we justify the work, considering the uses of the body and space. The research problem is: how can Pole Dance contribute to thinking about the body and its relations with Physical Education? The objective of the research is to understand the meaning of Pole Dance for Poledancers (practitioners of the modality, students and teachers) and how these meanings can contribute to reflections on Physical Education. Discourse analysis was used for data analysis. As a result, we obtained (re)meanings for Pole Dance: Pole Dance well-being and Pole Dance Empowerment, through relationships, of the sensitive body by Merleau-Ponty such as Pole Dance Bem-estar and Pole Dance Empowerment.