These candid photos document erotic dancers on and off the stage

Strippers are elite performers whose work revolves around crafting a fantasy – oftentimes anticipating the desire of their spectators and embodying it; other times enacting their fantasy of themselves on the stage while customers look on like extras in a scene directed by the performer. While there is a huge and often unacknowledged dimension of emotional labour involved in this work – so much of being a stripper involves conversation, creating rapport and listening to customers’ confessions – at its heart, it’s about spectacle. 

Photographer Danielle Fitzgerald has always been drawn to stigmatised communities and storytelling, with the intention of amplifying unheard voices and enabling the people she photographs to have more agency over how they are perceived. In an industry that is so ocular, she wanted to work with dancers to depict “authenticity over glamour. Connection over hyper sexualisation”. With many friends in the industry and having herself spent time dancing in nightclubs in Greece, she tells Dazed: “Strippers, for me, feel like home. It was a natural progression for me to document this subculture.” 

Fitzgerald was born in Hull, in the UK, but now lives in Western Australia. Shot between 2022 and 2023, her photo series Venus 8 focuses on dancers in Perth, primarily in the “unseen spaces” of their homes and backstage (what Fitzgerald calls their “pre-game” state). She tells Dazed that her “fly-on-the-wall” portraits are shot in “hotels, peep shows, and locker rooms of strip clubs”. She continues, “I also documented the pre-floor moments and the connection between performers before the club opens to patrons. I wanted to capture this side of their story.”

Before re-discovering photography, Fitzgerald worked as a social worker and a huge part of how she approached this project has been informed by this experience, following an “ethical practice” to build trust and intimacy between herself and the dancers she portrays. “Cameras can act as tools of rebellion and activism, highlighting social injustice,” she explains. “Even when I picked up my camera, I still felt like I was doing social work, just with an added tool under my belt.” 

Inspired by anthropologists like Judith Okely, who immersed themselves in the worlds of their chosen subjects, Fitzgerald devoted huge amounts of time to the project. Alongside the photographs, she made in-depth interviews with the dancers which she hopes will one day accompany the images in a book. “I would spend months connecting with my subjects online, via voice notes, text messages and emails. I also wanted them to have regular access to me pre- and post-shooting. Still to this day, I offer that. For me, it’s about building trust. We go into quite sensitive topics… ranging from life history, entry to sex work, work and study outside of the industry, industry trends, favourite aspects of sex work, discrimination, censorship, [any medical] diagnoses and whether this is supported at work, addictions, self-care practices, social media, stigma, boundaries, relating, queerness and what drew them to engage with Venus 8. I wanted to make sure they are comfortable with me and what I’m trying to say in this story.”

The word intimacy is thrown around a lot when describing portraiture but in this case, the sense of comfortable collusion between Fitzgerald and the dancers is palpable. “The way I document is not intrusive, it’s a conversation, like I’m in it with you. I’m not seeking the ‘perfect shot’, I’m waiting for the quiet moments of connection. Then I click my shutter. I learnt on film, so I still use my digital camera this way. I like the art of waiting for a moment to arrive.”

Addressing the discourse around strip clubs, Fitzgerald reflects, “I kept seeing this rhetoric online… There are so many conflicting views. One minute [the industry is] stigmatised, then it’s de-stigmatised, then it’s glamorised in popular culture, so then it’s celebrated. It’s very polarising.” In a sense, Venus 8 is about humanising the dancers around whom so much debate ferments. “People have very strong opinions about the sex work industry,” she continues, condemning the censure of dancers, “especially if comes from the mouths of people who have never set foot in these environments and are passing judgment from a state of privileged seclusion, or separation from the facts and practicalities of the real world. For me, it’s about personal choice and bodily autonomy”.

For a closer look, visit the gallery above. Danielle Fitzgerald supports her practice (and the development of a future publication) here on Patreon.