Interviews
GIGI - Getting down with the pole dance superstar
Gigi, is South Africa's best known stripper.
However, unlike the common garden variety stripper, Gigi wears many hats, including exotic dancer, club owner, play producer, Survivor contestant and is solely responsible for the death of sundry sperm each year. That's quite a CV.
The perception is that the industry is run by sleaze bags and busty blondes with eastern bloc accents, but Gigi breaks this mould. She exudes the energy of a powerful, strong willed business woman who was conquered a masculine domain. Indeed, she has. In this competitive industry Gigi has opened her own club -- the infamous Lollipop Lounge -- competing with some of the country's most notorious strip club owners, not to mention her erstwhile bosses, one of whom has been all over the media and street pole ads for well over a decade now.
We caught up with her as she stripped away the layers of her life to give JHBLive readers an intimate glimpse into her world.
Gigi: I grew up in Paarl in the Western Cape, I matriculated there. I studied drama at Stellenbosch. Afterwards, I landed up in Joburg working for Pact -- I got chosen to do productions for Pact at the Old State Theatre in Pretoria. I ended up touring around with primary and high school productions; from there I started doing cabaret shows. I danced for 15 years and ended up doing topless shows. Cabaret dancing is exotic dancing and that's how I got to know the industry.
JHBLIVE: How did the transition from drama to cabaret dancing happen?
G: They're actually both very similar because you're working in big group shows. Then somebody said to me "phone this agent" and in those days the nipple caps and g-strings were still on, and then in 1994, when Mandela got released, the nipple caps and g-strings started disappearing so there was a lot of freedom from all sides. Soon afterwards I started dancing and I combined my theatre background with my shows, which made my shows very different indeed. My shows resonated with a lot of people and I got really popular doing bachelor parties and I ended up doing, sometimes, as many as ten bachelor parties on a Saturday night. From 1 o'clock straight through to 12 o'clock at night.
G: I see that [points to her stage] as exactly the same stage as the Civic Theatre's -- it's a place of entertainment -- the holiest of holy is the stage and it doesn't matter if somebody pays R50 for a show in Primrose -- if I can put a smile on his face then I've achieved my job and it's all about entertaining people at the end of the day.
JHBLIVE: Wait a second? did you say u had to cover you nipples in the dark old days when doing a show?
G: Ja, it was still nipple caps and g-strings, when the nipple caps started disappearing we had to have plasters cut into little [round] circles in the dressing room for a quick on and off -- just in case there was a raid, there were lots of raids back then. The girls weren't allowed to take their g-strings off. Full-house shows were hush hush and mostly held at private residences.
JHBLIVE: That's weird; I would've thought our Storm Troopers would've been the first in line for your shows?
G: Not really, we used to do shows for a lot of celebrities in those days. It was fun but it was also scary because you could never be [free]. You could be performing at the Summit Club and there was a real chance that the club could be raided at anytime, so things have changed. I mean now, even in theatre, you get actors wearing no clothes at all - it's more acceptable than it used to be. Today a girl has the freedom to do pretty much anything in South Africa, but in other places, like the Middle East, there are still taboos. Even in America there are strip clubs where girls can only go topless. The South African man is very spoiled with the kind of entertainment he can buy for R100.
G: I often end up bringing someone with a disability up on stage and I don't always realise it. Everyone else knows it in the audience, except me. Like, for instance, I'll choose some guy with a wooden leg and I'll ask him to perform and I'll only realise when he's on stage that he's got a disability which makes me squirm -- for him and me! You're trying to make him walk like an Egyptian and the man can't and that always happens to me. I dunno, I just choose them!
JHBLIVE: What about us guys, what do we do that causes backroom chatter?
G: A lot of the times we'll take young boys on stage and it's very easy for them to get hard ons and you're sitting there with this boy and you could just die because the audience is laughing so much.
JHBLIVE: And bachelor parties? Dish the dirt...
G: I always try to take someone with to bachelor parties. At bachelor parties it's often scary, but I was never alone. You're worried that he's going to throw up on you or fall on top of you or something concerning like that.
JHBLIVE: Bwahahahahaha! Has that ever actually happened to you?
G: Yes. Often -- it is a bachelor party after all! Some of these guys are huge and if they fall on you, it's like a tree being felled.
G: Yes. It's about who's the prettiest -- there's a lot of rivalry, but that makes it all the more interesting!
JHBLIVE: But how do you address that?
G: Well, it's just natural, it is a strip club, so of course there's going to be rivalry... but the competition is always healthy.
JHBLIVE: So you encourage it?
G: Yeah, it keeps the standard high.
JHBLIVE: How do you stay in shape?
G: I gym about three times a week.
JHBLIVE: You mostly have a bird's eye view of the male species, how do you define them ?
G: Men are simple creatures and they're very gullible -- the girls can say "you are the most gorgeous man in the world" and all she wants is his money, but they just lap it up! That's why they come here, to be told "you're gorgeous and sexy" they buy into the fantasy and they do that quite willingly.
JHBLIVE: If you could group guys into four categories what would they be?
G: You get the spenders, the non-spenders, the moaners, and the kinky guys.?
JHBLIVE: What are the moaners?
G: They moan about everything -- they moan that the dance costs too much, that the girls aren't pretty enough? they non-spenderrs steal with their eyes by not buying their own dances.
JHBLIVE: What do the kinky guys do... touch?
G: No you get the guys that have the foot fetishes and like getting their nipples turned or something like that. Every person is different.
JHBLIVE: The dancers, not particularly in this club, but just generally speaking, how much do they earn per month?
G: It depends on how hard she's willing to work. She can make R2, 000 a night if she's willing to work hard.
G: To escape reality, to buy into a fantasy, to be treated like a sex symbol.
JHBLIVE: Like a sex symbol??
G: Yeah, because oftentimes nobody at home treats him like that anymore -- the honeymoon is over. Now you've got to drive the kids to school and pay bills and you buy into a fantasy world where you can escape.
JHBLIVE: Do you believe in marriage?
G: Yes
JHBLIVE: Is there a lot of rivalry between the Lollipop Lounge and other clubs?
G: Not really. I know all of them, I've worked for all of them. I've worked for Lolly [Jackson of Teazers fame], and I've worked for Andrew [Phillips of the Lounge club]. I know all these people. But, there's a lot of
rivalry going down Rivonia - we're in Ranburg, so we just do our own thing.
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What Others Said
soso said
on 03 February 2010
