Sonja’s approach to pole and erotic movement is informed by her academic research on the body, performance, gender, and sexuality, as well as her twenty-three years of experience in the fitness industry as a certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor. The approach, therefore, gives equal attention to proper technique as it does to the broader implications of engaging in a practice that is heavily coded in terms of gender, sexuality, and labour due to its roots in the sex work industry.

Attending to the abstract theoretical considerations related to the ways in which bodies are disciplined to conform to normative gender expectations, Sonja’s approach encourages a conscious unlearning of internalized social and cultural norms through movement; an embodied resistance against corporeal alienation and its broader social and political ramifications.

SonjaSloane.com is a space where theory and practice/personal and political come together: where you can learn the movement vocabulary and technical skills you need to feel safe in fully inhabiting your flesh suit, and contextualize your dance practice within an intersectional trans/feminist framework.