Netflix is inviting us into the “world of pole” in its new dance doc, Strip Down, Rise Up. In the first trailer for director Michèle Ohayon’s new film, per TV Line, a group of women learns to reclaim their bodies and their sexuality through a new form of therapy: pole dancing.
Led by The Good Doctor‘s Sheila Kelley, new dancers curious about healing through the sport try out the complex art of pole dancing to process issues like body acceptance, sexual abuse, and other traumas. “I want you to think of the pole as the frame of the artwork of your body,” Kelley tells her students in today’s trailer as she guides them through the experience of pole dancing.
The women who come to Kelley’s studio all have their own specific reasons for turning to pole dancing to process their emotions. For some, it’s because of a recent loss, like the 50-year-old widow featured in today’s trailer. For others, it’s to get more in touch with their body. “When I first started, I just wanted to feel more sensual,” one dancer explains. “I didn’t know there was a deeper journey.”
While some of the women enter the studio hoping to learn a new skill, today’s trailer shows that pole dancing offers so much more than flexibility and physical strength — it can offer an emotional transformation, too. “Emotion is going to come up, fear is going to come up,” Kelley tells the dancers. “You have to fight through it.”
In an interview with People, Ohayon explained that she wanted to “celebrate women” with her new film, which spotlights the dancers’ journey “from victim to victors” through dance.
“I wanted to show through my lens, that sensual dance is for every body type, shape and ethnic background,” Ohayon said. “My film gives a voice to a diverse group of women, their power, their pain, their reclamation, their raw beauty, and offers a much-needed positive message of women stripping down shame and taking ownership of their sensual, feminine being in order to rise. I truly hope it will inspire others to move into movement.”
Strip Down, Rise Up premieres on Netflix Friday, Feb. 5. Watch the full trailer in the video above.