There’s a move in the world of pole dancing known as the surfboard. Two dancers climb up the pole; the one on bottom lays her body horizontally, holding on to the pole with just her legs, while the other stands on top of her, like a surfer on a board, gliding on a wave. In the third episode of P-Valley, the sensual Starz drama about goings-on at a strip club called the Pynk in the fictional town of Chucalissa, Mississippi, the show’s dancers pull off a move called a double surfboard: a third dancer joins the two, hanging upside down like Spider-Man beneath the horizontal dancer. After the bottom two dancers climb back down, the top dancer slides all the way down the pole like a fireman, falling into the splits before twerking ferociously on the floor.
For most shows, a number like this one would be the centerpiece of a grand finale, a tour de force of physical ingenuity and eroticism. For P-Valley, written and created by playwright Katori Hall, it’s just one more in a series of unbelievably intense, sexy numbers.
The routines are dreamt up by the show’s choreographer, Jamaica Craft, who’s worked with a slew of stars, including Usher, Ciara, and Justin Bieber, in addition to choreographing events like the 2016 BET Awards and the Teen Choice Awards. She also pulled choreographer duty on Fox’s Empire. Craft began her career dancing for TLC in Atlanta, a city renowned for its strip club culture. She strived to stuff P-Valley with as many numbers as humanly possible, blending the world of exotic dancing and competitive pole dancing.
“I wanted to make sure I had new moves, but at the same time I had old moves,” she said in a recent phone call. “I’m very big on history of dance, no matter what genre it is, and I wanted real O.G.s to see certain things and be like, yup.”
Craft had long been a fan of exotic dancing, embedding certain moves into her choreographic work over the years. She began research for P-Valley by going to strip clubs in Atlanta before familiarizing herself with the variations of pole dancing in different American cities, like New York, Nashville, and Miami, as well as other countries, like Russia and Australia. “You’ll see the mixture because I feel like that’s when you get something magical,” she said.
The show employs an army of body doubles and professional dancers who hail from the competitive pole dancing world and various strip clubs, like Ashley Fox and Judy Gray. Dancer Spyda also serves as the stunt double for head dancer Mercedes (Brandee Evans)—not only inspiring the double surfboard, but pulling off the move herself in the episode.
Ahead of filming, Craft put the show’s core cast through an “extreme” monthlong pole dancing boot camp—one that led to its share of injuries. “We got hurt a little bit in there,” she said. “Just common things when you’re dancing, like pulling muscles, using muscles you have never used before, especially in your arms and in your legs. Even the burn from the pole.”