‘It’s feminist and it’s badass’: the Iranian women taking up pole dancing and aerial dance

Hanging from a rope, a harness or a hoop, Iranian women are flocking to gyms to perform aerial dance and sharing videos of their routines on social media. Others are quietly practising another form of self-expression – pole-dancing – in underground venues hidden from Iran’s security forces. In a theocracy where women are banned from riding motorbikes, singing or dancing in public or appearing outside without a state-mandated hijab, aerial dance and pole dancing are revolutionary acts.