Strippers’ School In Sydney

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 2

Strippers’ School In Sydney

Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A. SYDNEY, June 21. Among the subjects studied by a group of young girls at a specialised Sydney school is “Psychology of the Inhibitions and Dynamic Rotation and Oscillation.” Another subject on the curriculum is: “Applied Sensual Communication,” while the girls also study on: “Control of Structural Components of the Anatomy.” The give-away subject is: "The History and Theory of Strip-Tease,” for the school is the Staccato Strip School in the heart of Sydney’s entertainment world at King’s Cross. Budding strippers pay £(N.Z.)4 a head for a crash course designed to get them jobs in Sydney’s booming strip-tease world. At present more than 100 girls earn up to £(N.Z.)4O a week for working in the eight strip clubs in the King’s Cross area. There is such a shortage of talent that many of them appear in two or more clubs each night.

Sydney strippers, unlike their counterparts in London’s Soho, do not go “all the

way.” The law insists that they stop at briefs and a pair of tassles.

Tourists and Sydney people having a “night at the Cross” flock to pay 16s a head admission charge to the clubs, which have names like the “Pink Pussycat,” the “Pink Panther,” “strip a Go Go,” and the “Crazy Horse.” The clubs insist that stripping is now a new art form, and at one club the compere accompanies a strip ballet with the fable of the "Golden Fish.” As the lead girl “swims” off stage, he solemnly intones: "And so the Golden Fish of paradise swims off to her Inevitable end with the monsters of the deep.” This puts "dignity” into stripping, says the club owner. A rival to the clubs appeared on the scene recently in the form of Sydney’s “First Bare-top Restaurant.” A licensed restaurant featuring topless—but not tassle-less—“Go Go” girls opened. Retaliation was swift and now all the leading strip clubs are offering customers the chance to learn the new dance steps from their own topless “Go-Go” girls, between the strip shows. One can dance with topless girls at the “baretop restaurant” too, but prospective customers are warned: “no admission in casual dress.”