Eisa Jocson

Eisa Jocson is a contemporary dance-maker from the Philippines. Trained as a visual artist, with a background in ballet, she won her first pole-dancing competition in Manila in 2010, and also started pole ‘tagging’ and other public interventions.

 Created under residency in Belgium, Eisa’s ‘Death of the Pole Dancer' solo questions the stereotype and context of the female pole dancer, and toured Berlin, Brussels, Zurich, Vienna and Ljubljana.

She then trained in ‘macho dancing’, a popular night-club entertainment form, and premiered the solo ‘Macho Dancer’ in spring 2013 which tours 4 festivals this summer: Impulstanz, Noorderzon, Tanz im August, Zurcher Theater Spektakel. From pole to macho dancing, Eisa investigates the labour and representations of the dancing body in the service industry, and exposes gender formation, seduction politics, and Filipino social mobility.