Discover Flying Felines: An Evening of Spins, Flips, and Neuroqueer Joy

It’s Tuesday at 4p.m and it’s getting dark outside. I find myself navigating Aarhus’ windy and shadowy streets almost on autopilot. There aren’t many people around, just a couple of neighbours hurrying home for dinner and everything feels quiet, deserted. I turn around the corner and, behind an empty carport, something unexpected appears: a small oasis. Soft, warm lights glow against the night, and music seeps through the walls, a smooth melody that welcomes you in and makes you slow down. The cold fades. The silence breaks.

That’s Flying Felines Studio.

I step closer and open the door. I let Misse, the cat, slip inside first, and suddenly I’m wrapped in a wave of colour, sound, laughter, and an atmosphere that feels instantly warm and alive. Some people are finishing their pole dance class, hanging on the pole, stretching and moving to the beat of the music. A couple students are hanging out on the couch area, now petting the cat and talking to each other. I take off my shoes, jacket, and winter layers, then step into the studio space as class is about to begin. I say hi to a few familiar faces and I look ahead as the teacher, Sky, starts us off: “Ready? Let’s begin by rotating our shoulders.” 

Sky and Nanna Steenholdt often spend time at the studio together, as a couple, teacher and student. They both started pole dancing almost at the same time, and eventually Sky switched to aerial sling. What began as a hobby and a way to spend time together, gradually became something much more.

Pole dance is a sport, an art form, and a performance practice shaped by many cultures and communities, deeply rooted in the work of sex workers and strippers, without whom it wouldn’t exist. From climbing and spinning on a metal pole to posing and choreographing, the practice carries a long tradition of embodied knowledge. Flying Felines Studio doesn’t just acknowledge this history, it builds on it. More than a pole and aerial arts studio, it has grown into a safe, inclusive space for queer adults seeking connection beyond the party scene. 

Sky and Nanna first met the owner, Iris Skov Karremans, at a previous studio, where they trained together and became good friends. When Flying Felines opened in 2024, they chose to join her in creating something new: an all-gender-inclusive, queer-affirming space where pole dance and aerial arts are practiced with care, intention, and community. 

So, after all that, you might wonder: what makes this studio truly special? 

“It’s probably boundaries,” Iris says. 

I look around: a mix of languages, hair colours, body shapes, genders, and expressions of identity. It’s a vibrant, diverse mix that lives together effortlessly, inspiring anyone who enters to join in and keep coming back

“It just happened naturally,” Karremans says. What started as a queer safe space gradually grew, welcoming many international and neurodivergent people who connected with her own experience. “I am very ADHD myself, so I feel like people that came with me have to be okay with that,” she adds.­

Flying Felines is defined by the way everyone’s boundaries coexist. Cultural backgrounds, queer identities, and different ways of functioning all influence how people move, interact, and connect, shaping a space that is welcoming, inclusive, and respectful of each other’s limits. “There is a lot of freedom in the studio for people to be however they want to be, as long as they don't hurt anyone else,” Iris says. 

With the owner shaping the space to meet everyone’s needs and instructors who share those values, the community grew bigger, vibrant, welcoming, and open-minded. “I feel like it’s something very necessary, and also a luxury,” Karremans reflects. “I would say this should be normal, expected, even though it isn’t.”

Besides being a safe space for queer people to train, the studio is also a place to meet and build community with like-minded peers. “I think a lot of places, especially gyms, first off, don’t have much of a social space,” Iris explains. “You go to work out, you do your exercise, and you leave. Here, we’re doing things in a much more social way.” 

­We’re already halfway through the class. The room hums with effort: people spinning, climbing, and trying to hold a pose. You can feel the tension and determination; for some, it’s their very first class. Then, suddenly, someone nails it. “Yay!” someone calls out. “You got it!” Sky encourages, and the room bursts into cheers. One classmate steps forward, phone in hand. “Want a picture?” they ask. They nod, and smiles light up faces all around. Click! The photo captures the moment. And just like that, everyone returns to their silks, climbing, spinning and trying again.

Since it’s a rather small studio and the atmosphere encourages talking and interacting, you naturally start building a community with the regulars who keep showing up, and they also host a monthly social event that brings everyone together even more. That sense of community is strengthened by the supportive vibe, people cheer each other on, celebrating even the smallest victories. “No matter how fast you make progress, you always have little moments where suddenly you can do something you couldn’t do before,” Sky shares. It can feel vulnerable at times, exposing even, but once you realize that the only challenge is with your own body, it starts to feel empowering. If you look around, you’ll see that everyone is more or less in the same boat. And if a move just isn’t working that day, you can step out, talk to your teacher, and say, “I can’t do this today” and it’s perfectly fine. There’s no shame, only support.

It’s a diverse crowd, and that’s part of what makes it inspiring, but at the same time, it doesn’t matter. Size, shape, gender… none of it matters here. Everyone is focused on holding onto a silk or a pole, sweating it out, testing their limits. You see others struggling and succeeding, gaining confidence along the way, and you think, “why shouldn’t I be able to do this too?” 

“Flying Felines is also one of the few places where you do sports relatively undressed, which means you see a wide variety of bodies. That visibility can mean a lot, especially for neurodivergent and queer people, who are often underrepresented in mainstream beauty and fitness standards,” Nanna reflects. The focus here isn’t on looking flawless or fitting a certain canon, it’s on what your body can do. “I genuinely feel like it changes your relationship to your body,” Sky shares. “Whatever shape you are, you can always learn to be strong.” 

“And I think that helps a lot with body image, body awareness, and definitely confidence,” Iris adds. 

“For me, it just seems to be the right way to move,” Sky explains. “It’s given me a lot of strength, which I kind of need anyway and it’s very good for getting rid of pain. If I’m having a bad day and I go and work out, I feel so much better afterwards. It’s never a chore; it’s always kind of a relief.”

When the conversation turns to the future, Iris, Nanna, and Sky all agree on one thing: it would be meaningful for spaces like Flying Felines to exist everywhere. Still, growth comes with careful consideration. “I would like to go bigger,” Iris reflects, “but also make sure that I don’t go too big.” Community, after all, is fragile. “I do want to have some sort of community, and if it gets too big, then I feel like the community suffers,” Karremans adds. Expansion for the sake of expansion isn’t the goal. “It’s no longer community you can build if it’s a franchise, in my opinion.” What matters isn’t scale, but sustainability, care, and the ability to hold space intentionally. 

At this point, Flying Felines is not only about being a queer-safe space; it’s about sustaining the community itself. That care, ongoing and attentive, is what allows the studio to thrive.

Creating a genuinely queer and inclusive space for people from many different backgrounds isn’t easy, and it’s something many places struggle to follow through on.

“People should be super explicit about the fact that they’re queer-friendly,” Sky says, “but then also act like it.” Too often, inclusivity stops at the label. “The follow-through is where a lot of places fail. It takes work to actually be queer-friendly, and a lot of people are not willing to put it in.” 

At Flying Felines, that work is ongoing and visible in how the space is held, how people are welcomed, and how community is protected year-round. 

The clock is ticking. Only ten minutes left of class. We finish the last exercise and move into cool-down stretches. “Thank you for today. Tak for i dag!” someone says before leaving. 

After a bit of chatting, I pull on my layers, open the door, and step back out into the dark street. It almost feels like another world but this time, I step into it feeling perhaps a bit more confident, at ease, like this makes sense.