A standout amongst the local businesses of Renton’s downtown, Ascendance Pole & Aerial Arts dance studio is, in fact, a nonprofit organization.

“It’s basically a way of structuring a business,” said co-founder and board vice president Maggie Nation. “It means any profits go back into the business and to the community.”

Community, sustainability and longevity are all part of Ascendance’s vision and structuring itself as a nonprofit allows that, says Nation.

“We’re very intentional about doing community work,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that what we were building has longevity and there’s not just one person benefitting.”

Part of becoming active in the community is to push back against the misconceptions that people can have about pole dancing for exercise. Nation, who has a background in dance, has been doing pole for over a decade and says that it has become a lot more normalized, which Ascendance board member and studio manager JoJo Clarke agrees with.

“Pole is more mainstream,” said Clarke. “Shows like ‘P-Valley’ have made it trendy to do strip stuff.”

Clarke first started out at Ascendance doing lyra, which is where aerial moves and poses are done on a large ring that hangs in the air but decided to give pole dancing a try after she would hear cheers coming from the pole classroom at the studio.

Along with a variety of pole and lyra classes, Ascendance offers aerial yoga, where students use silk hammocks with yoga poses, along with silks and sling classes where students can learn to do aerial moves with long, fabric pieces that hang from the ceiling. While primarily a dance studio, exercise is an inevitable part of Ascendance considering the amount of strength and conditioning required to do most of the classes, but Nation doesn’t lead with that in mind.

“Women don’t typically have a lot of upper body strength so what’s nice about being in a class like this,” Nation said. “I don’t like to focus on [doing pull-ups] in class, or making that a goal.”

For Nation, part of the appeal of doing pole work is that there are always new moves being invented. “It’s nice because I get bored at the gym,” she said. “But coming to class, there’s always something to learn that’s new and exciting.”

With 40 different classes a week that can be registered for online, Ascendance offers class packages that start out with $32 for a single class, along with series classes, memberships, private classes, private events and even low-cost community classes. Ascendance also offers scholarships, which allow accessible and affordable pole and aerial classes to those who apply and are selected by the non-profit’s board of directors.

Every year, the studio also hosts two student showcases, where students can perform their dance choice to the public. “We celebrate how far our students have come and how far our studio has come,” said Nation.

Ascendance will have its fifth anniversary in the fall and the studio will have an additional student dance showcase to celebrate the milestone.

Twenty-five teachers, close to 1,000 first-time students, a new lobby and five years later, Clarke says that the studio hasn’t changed much. “I feel like everything is the same,” she said. “It’s the same place I fell in love with.”

Photos by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing LEFT: JoJo Clarke started out learning lyra and then began learning how to do pole since people were always cheering each other on in the pole class at Ascendance. RIGHT: Maggie Nation has been doing pole and aerial for over a decade.

JoJo Clarke shows off the Apprentice pose on the pole. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.