Dancers, 1986

Black-and-white reportage of young women working the lunch shift in the striptease bar ‘Boobie Rock’ in Houston, TX. The series was made two years after completing my studies at The New England School of Photography in Boston, MA. USA.

During a visit to Houston, I was struck by the number of striptease clubs and bars and, out of curiosity, applied for a job as a waitress. I was 22 years old, around the same age as the women in the images. I wanted to know more about the dancers and their lives. This wasn’t easy, as there was a definite hierarchy, and the job of waitressing was to serve the dancers whose job, next to dancing, was to get clients to buy as many drinks as possible, for both the themselves and the clients.

Inspired by the book ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ by the English novelist Aldous Huxley, I felt the only way to get close to the women I wanted to portray was to become a dancer myself.

I assumed that dancers would be poorly educated and had no other choice. In many cases, nothing was further from the truth. More than a few women were financing their college educations through stripping. Other women were truly excellent dancers and told me they were doing it to save money for their future once they became too old for the job.

This body of work paved the way toward my approach to how I portray people. It also taught me not to judge others or make assumptions—something I have used in my practice as a photographer since making this series.