Two Cents: The Pole Shebang (Sydney Fringe)
Despite performing, competing and teaching pole for decades – including a show at the Opera House – Andrea James Lui has had a long and complicated relationship with her vocation. Ever since she was a neurospicy kid growing up in Canada, she’s been tomboy-maxxing. Femininity and its expressions could feel like a trap; an acquiescence to the gender codes and a threat to autonomy. The only girly things she embraced back then were rainbows (colourful!) and unicorns (because magical steeds with weapons on their faces? Sick). Even now, she looks at the Mr Pole Dance comps and can’t help but feel a little envious. Guys don’t even have to point their toes.
A uniquely engaging show that ends in Pikachu in pleasers, Lui’s The Pole Shebang is an inspired, introspective and warmly candid journey of self-discovery – and of being a baddie on your own terms. Semi-autobiographical, a fictional device gives a container to the show’s confessional and performance elements: Lui has been called up last-minute as a contestant for the Miss Pole Dance World Championship. Standing before us in a singlet, messy bun and boy shorts, she’s body-slammed by self-doubt. Is she ready? Is she worthy? Does she even belong to this super-feminised, sexualised, glamorous world?
Before the show goes too deep too fast, Lui gives us a little interactive taste of pole dancing and its pleasures. Enlisting two audience members as “training buddies”, she teaches them a few signature moves. Her instructions are fun and creative; for instance, the body roll is performed “as though you’re holding a bowl of soup and – oh no! – it’s spilled down your front!”. Our participants this particular night were full novices with less than optimal gusto; still brave though, and given exuberant encouragement under Lui’s lead.
A sudden shift, and suddenly she’s performing solo the same moves dressed like an Asian school girl – and only with our say-so. Despite the comic touches (Lui sexy-moaning “Dow Jones!” when she performs The Businessman spin) it’s unsettling to yell “Fan kick! Fan kick!” at her like she’s a voice-activated robo-doll. Which is probably an audience response the show deliberately engineers. The school girl was a default when she was starting out in pole, she tells us; an easy costume for her to access and for other people to ‘read’.
Through literal twists and digressive turns, we follow Lui through the years as she evolves her understanding with herself, her peers, the industry and the artform. She takes us back to her first and only stint in a strip club (as recommended by her mum), which gives her a new level of respect for sex workers. She thinks about the pole community; how it’s a calling for so many, a means to create a new relationship with one’s body, sexuality and power – but also a lot like an abusive boyfriend. Any relationship that goes unexamined for too long can get toxic.
A reflection on the various kinds of stress responses (beyond fight or flight) leads to the most arresting section of the show – a routine that is more artistry than showwomanship, with Lui spinning on the pole like a sleep-dancer or a person possessed. Eerie and beautiful, with flickering lights and an electronic breakbeat track, it’s revelatory.
A one-person show with a few moving parts, there’s some transitions to be managed. On the whole, Lui navigates these capably with insider pole facts, asides and anecdotes. My favourite: a Mr Bean reference while changing into her final outfit of the night.
Much like gender, being performative – when you make it your own – can be an act of incredible strength, creativity and self-possession. Lui actually loves her heels, she tells us, pulling them on and admiring her enhanced leggy legs. They’re kind of like unicorn horns, those heels – magical weapons. Her metamorphosis from tomboy to queen is inspiring not because it’s presented as a linear makeover, a Princess Diaries before/after triumph, but because it’s proof of malleability and multiplicity; of human culture’s miracle of empowered transformation.
Premiering in London in 2024, and scooping awards in Lui’s former home of Canada the following year, The Pole Shebang deserves a bigger stage and better lighting than what the Erskineville’s Living Room at Sydney Fringe provides.
The Pole Shebang
By Andrea James Lui
Sydney Fringe
Until 26 September 2026
