'Strip Down, Rise Up' Full Cast List: Meet Sheila Kelley, Jenyne Butterfly and other stars in Netflix's documentary on pole dancing
The upcoming Netflix documentary ‘Strip Down, Rise Up’ will see women of different ages and ethnicities learning to celebrate their bodies through the sensual art of pole dancing. For the first time ever, Netflix is bringing forth something of this genre - where the women unleash their inner goddesses and learn to overcome their past traumas and fears.
Sheila Kelley, the owner of S Factor is one of the focal points of the documentary and arguably its most famous participant. Kelley isn’t the only owner and teacher featured. Amy Bond, who owns San Francisco Pole and Dance, a professional pole dancer is also featured in the movie.
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Sheila Kelley
Sheila Kelley is an American actress well-known for her roles on TV series like ‘LA Law’, ‘ER’, ‘The Sopranos’, ‘The Good Doctor’ and ‘Sisters’. The two most iconic roles in her career were as Gwen Taylor on ‘LA Law’ and as Dr Charlotte Bennett Hayes on ‘Sisters’. She also appeared in the popular series ‘Gossip Girl’ for eight episodes, playing Carol Rhodes, the elder sister of Lily van der Woodsen. In ‘The Good Doctor’, she plays the role of Debbie Wexter, the wife of Dr Aaron Glassman, played by Richard Schiff. In real life, Kelley and Schiff are married since 1996 and share two children.
Kelley has also appeared in films like ‘Singles’, ‘Matchstick Men’, ‘Nurse Betty’ and ‘One Fine Day’. While preparing for the 2000 feature film ‘Dancing at the Blue Iguana’, Kelley learned the skills of stripteasing and pole dancing. Thereafter, she took a keen interest in the craft and combined it with her knowledge of ballet and exotic dancing to design a dance fitness workout for women called ‘S Factor.’ In fact, she released a book titled ‘S Factor: Strip Workouts for Every Woman’ and shares information regularly about the fitness regime.
Kelley is the pole dance trainer featured in the documentary ‘Strip Down, Rise Up’.
Jenyne Butterfly
Butterfly is an actress and a trained expert of aerial dancing and pole dancing. Before she discovered her passion for pole dancing at an exotic club, she had completed a degree in interior design and architecture. However, she self-trained at home from online sessions of pole dancing and later inspired a movement when her videos were released on YouTube.
After moving to LA at the age of 21, Butterfly won the first-ever US Pole Dance Federation Championship and ranked second in the world finals. She then toured across 45 countries taking classes and performing. She has appeared in several music videos, commercials and worked with world-famous DJs like David Guetta, Tiesto and Paul Oakenfold.
Before ‘Strip Down, Rise Up’, she also starred in the 2012 musical ‘Rock of Ages’.
Elizabeth Mihelich
Born on August 16, 1979, in Colorado, USA, Elizabeth Mihelich is a prominent actress and producer. Her Instagram bio also enlists ‘writer’, ‘comedienne’, and ‘humanitarian’ as her professional accomplishments.
She has starred in movies like ‘After Emma’, ‘Always Remember Me’ and ‘It Happened Again Last Night’. Mihelich has also produced and written several short films, which earned critical acclaim.
Amy Bond
Amy Bond is the owner of San Francisco Pole and Dance. She is featured as a trainer alongside Kelley in the documentary. Bond even trains men in pole dancing as she teaches her clients to free their bodies from societal shackles.
Directed by Academy-Award nominated documentary filmmaker Michèle Ohayon, ‘Strip Down, Rise Up’ has women empowerment as its core message. She believes her film “gives a voice to a diverse group of women, their power, their pain, their reclamation, their raw beauty, and offers a much-needed positive message of women stripping down shame and taking ownership of their sensual, feminine being in order to rise."
‘Strip Down, Rise Up’ can be watched on Netflix after its release on Friday, February 5, 2021.
