In the 1970s, clubs such as Perv’s House and Pepper’s Hideout, located in Chatham, gave Black Chicagoans a place to move their bodies. It was considered a halcyon era for South Side night life, with lovers of underground funk, blues, and early disco frequenting a variety of entertainment options, including High Chaparral, the Patio Lounge, and the Showcase Lounge. These venues also provided work for Black performers of all stripes, from jazz musicians to dancers to striptease artists.
By the mid-1980s, that community had largely disappeared. When Ava V. Marie, who grew up on the South Side and had been dancing in clubs around the state, moved back to Chicago in 2022, she found a void. The clubs that remained were mostly on the North Side, and were unsafe, poorly run, or simply wouldn’t hire Black dancers.
So she founded Black Skrippa Brigade—a Chicago-based collective of black, queer strippers and pole dancers committed to creating more local opportunities and greater community for black dancers—to create opportunities the city wouldn’t offer. “There would be no BSB if even just two clubs consistently hired Black dancers,” she said.
This habit of self-determination and inventiveness is a throughline among Black artists of Chicago. For example, Bronzeville’s South Side Community Art Center was founded in 1940, to counter the exclusion of Black artists from mainstream museums and galleries. More recently, Chicago-based ballet dancer Erin Barnett created Black Girls Dance in 2015, after she discovered that her experiences as a young dancer were still common, with mainstream dance companies rarely contracting Black dancers.
Marie landed a position at Siren, a pole studio that was located in Logan Square; she and Gemini Jynx were both featured at the Power to the P-Pole show at the House of Blues in January 2025. When Siren closed in April 2025, due to challenges with the space and the landlord, Marie and Jynx combined forces.
Marie started looking for a place to host another show, but Gemini had already been plotting to convert her Little Village home into a community space for movement and healing. Pynk Portal Pole Sanctuary was thus conceived. A week after they met to finalize their plan, they started knocking down walls, cutting the ribbon and opening in July, 2025.
Earlier this month, I visited the studio as it reopened after a two-week renovation hiatus. Marie was running around putting things in place, as Saira Sol, an instructor, rehearsed choreography for their class. I lounged on the comfy couch with several others and listened in.
Marie said the renovations were made possible by volunteer labor; a student’s sugar daddy’s $3,000 contribution; and $2,000 in small donations from the sex workers and their clients. They have been doing pretty well since opening last summer, though the studio closed due to ICE activity in the neighborhood last year.
Gemini said community members were willing to protect each other from the threat of ICE raids, but she also acknowledged everyone did not have the tools they needed to do so. In the future, she wants to bring organizers from Minnesota to Chicago to share their knowledge, to better prepare for ICE’s inevitable return.
(11) The studio’s neon sign is reflected by the glass door overlooking Lawndale and 28th. The studio sits near two schools and the Little Village Boys & Girls Club. April 16, 2026 Credit: Susie Xu 
At the end of class, Saira angles their phone in front of the mirrors for recording. A student practices descent from the superman pose in the background. April 16, 2026 Credit: Susie Xu 
A typical pole stash includes (left to right) stiletos, knee pads, comfy pants, microfiber cloth and alcohol spray bottle to clean the pole, phone for videos, and water. These belong to Limerence, who attended Sairas Exotic Pole Flow class on April 16, 2026 Credit: Susie Xu 
A student practices the pole climb, a conditioning staple requiring shin and calf squeeze plus upper body coordination, in front of a children’s climbing wall, a relic from the building’s days as a kids’ arts center. April 16, 2026 Credit: Susie Xu 
The shrine consists of a mirror, dried flowers, candles, disco balls, pink fringes and two posters: one reminding visitors to support sex workers and another of magic. April 16, 2026 Credit: Susie Xu 
Inside, Saira gives hands-on assist to a student practicing the jasmine pose, suggesting an alternative arm placement would ease the transition to a superman pose. April 16, 2026 Credit: Susie Xu 
Friends of Pynk Portal Pole Sanctuary gather at the studio April 16, 2026, shortly before the reopening. They swap performance soundtracks, fries, and complaints of Peoples Gas while helping with the final cleanup. Credit: Susie Xu
Gemini’s other plans for the space include hosting plant medicine classes, and teaching Little Village residents, mostly Mexican, how to cook local veggies like Swiss chard and collard greens.
At the day’s end, I stood with students waiting for buses by the studio’s door. We chatted about wishing to afford more classes, as several chimes of a bell—crisp yet efficient—punctuated the surrounding hush. A man rolled up with a pushcart halfway down the block. We were too far away to ascertain his stock. As the Kimball-Holman 82 bus pulled up, fast-moving kids and more sluggish, taller figures emerged under the street lamps, a circle of moving shadows surrounding the pushcart vendor.
