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The Philippine Pole Cup: An Inspiration for All Pole Dancers

The Philippine Pole Cup 2017 saw over 30 pole artists from 11 countries compete for the top spot in each of nine categories: women’s, men’s and doubles in the amateur, semi-professional and professional levels. Each piece showed a different side of pole: some graceful and ballet-like, others strong and reminiscent of action film stunts.

The competitors in the amateur round were hardly novice polers! Russia’s Raisa Nuzhniak pulled off a series of very bendy tricks (of course a Russian has to do the Russian Split), while our very own Abigail Sy set the bar high with strong and challenging pole moves.

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Filipino Jay Doncillo, the sole contestant for men’s pole, put on a charming Bruno Mars-inspired number, earning awww’s from the ladies in the audience.

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Duo winners Masayuki Kinoshita & Aya Mugita (Japan) were a crowd favorite with their quirky performance using just the iPhone “Opening” ringtone as their background music! They later won as first runner-up in the Amateur Duo category.

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The Semi-Pro performances had our hearts stopping as polers climbed and dropped and twisted and held themselves like statues mid-air. Filipina Welchie Labasan opened the series with a beautiful but strong piece, while other local dancers paid tribute to Filipino culture with tribal-themed costumes.

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Guardians of the Galaxy seemed to be a favorite theme as two Groot polers demonstrated that men can be graceful and flexible, too.

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Read on for more!