WHAT’S THIS? ANOTHER LIFE DRAWING CLASS IN AN EX- STRIP PUB IN EAST LONDON? HOSTED BY ACTUAL STRIPPERS?
Life Drawing with ELSC first launched in 2013 as a natural progression from the age-old practice of hiring professional harlots & hussies as models for art.
Our class is fast paced & involves high-octane aerial pole poses. We incorporate some traditional life drawing with a couple 5, 10 and 15 minute poses. We have an extremely popular “audience participation” exercise. It is a nod to the “lap dance”, encouraging a fun, mischievous atmosphere throughout the class to inspire our community of talented amateur & professional artists.
We de-stigmatise sex work & create our own working conditions through this interdisciplinary class that includes drawing, visual arts, dance, music, comedy, improv, performance & writing.
All our models are strippers or ex-strippers. We welcome newcomers and veterans alike.
No experience necessary – we can’t wait to make love and make art with you, every Monday, 7-9:30pm!
If drawing in unusual scenarios is your thing – it doesn’t get much more unusual than this… Join us for another extraordinary and genuinely inspiring life drawing class in an old strip pub. The talented dancers of the ELSC are expanding their repertoire; no longer content to save their attributes for Saturday night punters, they are now performing incredible pole routines (with the added twist of holding still) for our more artistic patrons to capture them in motion.
We are giving artists a unique opportunity to draw strippers performing and pole-dancing, in a venue once lauded for it’s striptease shows. The classes are entirely self-organised and hosted by a group called East London Strippers Collective (ELSC), a group of strippers challenging stereotypes and societal attitudes towards strip clubs, by inviting a new audience of onlookers inside.
Our doors are open to professional artists, designers, sketchers, illustrators, animators, doodlers, students and first-timers alike.
We have worked out a section of the class called “strip-freeze” – a striptease routine interspersed with one minute poses. As the model performs a strip show on stage, our class-leader calls out “Freeze!” giving the class one minute to capture the pose before the model continues moving. This section is a warm-up exercise for the class, and an intense drawing experience. Once the model is naked, the length of the poses follow a more traditional pattern, with five, ten and fifteen minutes at a time.
The Crown & Shuttle is proud of it’s own history as a traditional East London boozer. Back in the day, as a Truman Brewery public house, it was common for strippers and showgirls to perform alongside other entertainers, comedians, and bands, all booked to entertain the rowdy punters. Crown & Shuttle’s upstairs venue, Filthy Fanny’s, is a nod to the steamier side of Shoreditch, back when pub landladies were tough old matriarchs, and before licensing laws clamped down on striptease entertainment. ELSC is proud to be collaborating with the Crown & Shuttle on this updated version of the art of stripping.
Many artists have used sex workers as models & muses for their work, however because sex work throughout history has been framed as inherently degrading, this age-old practice has been a long-ignored fact. The term ‘muse’ is important to this history as it is often used in the context of the male ‘creator’ who is inspired’ by his female muse – in other words, she’s incapable of her own creation or self-realisation – reinforcing women as passive object in relation to the male, active, subject.
The way we navigate the artist/muse issue & questions of exploitation in the sex industry is by asserting sex work as work, & stripping as a legitimate art form. The message isn’t about blanket narratives of exploitation or empowerment, but framing this work in a way that centres harm-reduction, destigmatisation & labour rights.
The desire for sex workers as art models isn’t going away & after centuries of poor representation, our view is that it’s irresponsible to produce this artwork without using it as a platform for de-stigmatisation & the sex worker’s rights movement. Images produced in our classes break away from the strip club’s prevailing male gaze, giving an insight into our dancers’ worlds & celebrating ownership over their own images, reclaiming the agency that is too often stripped of narratives around our bodies.
ELSC welcomes all gender expressions & identities, and artists from all ethnic & cultural backgrounds. We support a diverse audience that reflects our community of strippers & sex workers.
Tickets are offered at 2 tiers - £15 or £20 - this system allows us to keep running the class sustainably, ensuring all hosts & models are adequately paid whilst keeping it accessible for our community! If you have the means to do so, we encourage allies to select the £20 solidarity ticket tier - solidarity pricing helps support ELSC and fund community access!
The class will be led but not tutored. All levels of ability welcome. All paper & drawing materials are available for a £2.50 donation (free materials for students who bring photo ID).
Please note: We list our tickets as many places as possible, but the cheapest possible tickets we can offer are available on our website. This is because we're able to absorb the transaction fees on our site, but not able to do so here. We encourage you to buy tickets directly through our site if you can.
Visit our Life Drawing page for more dates!
HELPFUL TIPS
- We accept drop ins - but we cannot guarantee you a space in our class unless you book online!
- For Couples/Group Bookings: please arrive early at 18:45 in order to get seats together.
- Each ticket guarantees one seat or stool - if you require more than a seat's worth of space for yourself or your materials please book two tickets.
- If you arrive before 18:45, please wait patiently in the bar area downstairs of the pub.
- If you wish to leave the class early please inform the host and wait until an appropriate time in between poses to exit the room.
- Latecomers: Late arrivals are disruptive to class once we have started. If you are more than 10 mins late, please knock and wait outside for the host to meet, greet and seat you!
- We understand that plans change and people get sick - you may request a refund if you let us know within 48 hours.
- Additionally, if for any reason you wish to reschedule your ticket for another date, you may do so within 48hrs notice of the original date booked. Asking to reschedule multiple times creates chaos for us as a business. We’re a tiny team and only work part time so its not feasible to move your ticket more than one time! If you need to reschedule more than once, you will need to purchase a new ticket.