SOPHIA STANFORD
and
JAMES REYNOLDS
09:15 26 May 2025, updated 09:20 26 May 2025
- Do you know who the dancers are? Get in touch: sophia.stanford@mailonline.co.uk
A troupe of pole dancers have been arrested in Corfu after sparking fury over their scantily-clad photo shoot in front of a historic Greek landmark, local media have reported.
Earlier this week, a video of the racy performance went viral as British onlookers watched the half-naked women outside the Old Palace of St. Michael and St. George in the early hours of this morning.
One of the clips shows two women balancing together on a pole in bright red underwear by the 200-year-old UNESCO heritage site.
In another, a woman in black thong leotard is cheered on by a British woman who shouts ‘yes Shelly, nice!’.
The women have since been charged with violating archaeological law and degrading the surrounding area.
It is said the troupe did not understand the gravity of their ‘unfortunate’ actions until the video went viral.
Local media have reported that the British tourists appeared before a prosecutor over the weekend and remained in custody until their hearing later today.
It had been allegedly postponed til Monday by the dancers’ lawyer because the photographer had not been brought in.
The dancers had been visiting the island as part of a ‘pole dancing vacation’ that takes place every over the last two weeks of May and is set up by a British holiday organiser.
Intensive pole and aerial hoop workshops are available as well as the opportunity to build their pole photo shoot portfolios.
The Municipality of Corfu and the Museum of Asian Art are also said to have filed a lawsuit against the dancers.
Local outlet Proto thema assessed at the time: ‘Understandably, there were several reactions regarding who gave permission for such a photo shoot in the city centre.’
The former royal residence, commissioned by British Lord High Commissioner Sir Thomas Maitland and designed by Colonel George Whitmore, holds pride of place in the Old Town of Corfu, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Dozens of residents expressed online fury over the ‘disgraceful’ photo shoot taking place outside the historic palace with some claiming the dancers were British.
‘The Corfu Palaces: they once hosted royals. Now, pole dancing,’ commenter Panagiotis Kalogeros wrote on Facebook.
‘If Lord Byron saw pole dancing at the Palaces, he would have returned to England without a second thought.’
‘Would they do the same at Buckingham [Palace]?’ wrote another. ‘Of course, here we have been the inferior in Europe for years on vacation and binge. [sic]’
Another worried how the pole was supported, fearing ‘that they pierced the slabs in the ground’ to hold it in place. There was no evidence the site had been damaged.
The Palace of St. Michael and St. George was designed by British architects in the early 19th century, using neoclassical styles typical of the time.
For more than two centuries it has stood in the old city of Corfu, which has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2007.
The building is still in use today and remains a well preserved instance of Regency architecture towards the end of the Georgian period.
Greek users on Facebook were anxious that part of the site could have been damaged during the photo shoot, several asking how they gained permission.
‘Did the permanent residents of the historic centre and their association take a position for this event?’ one asked.
‘Who gave the permission slip???’ said another.
‘Someone should call the police,’ added a third.
The Directorate of the Museum of Asian Art, today housed inside the palace, was unaware of the event, according to local media.
Not all abhorred the dancers for performing outside the historic building, however.
User Bill Metallinos defended the performance.
‘Basically, what we see is the backstage of some photography,’ he said of the video.
‘Otherwise dancing is part of culture[.] it’s just that this one is misunderstood…
‘Yes the concept offends the monument but as an open space unguarded and unmarked disappointing swimsuits or extra items I see no reason someone who wants to take photos to be banned, it is an open public space.
‘But to see how hypocrit[ical] we are, we have passed a road of heavy vehicles through the Palace and under its Arch and we are sending all the exhaust pollution to Tufopetra that has been consumed by all this fuel gas…
‘And instead of shouting about the damage we are doing to it we ourselves are shouting about the photography that was done by some professionals in the area.
‘In the end, who damages the monument? Them or us?’
Another user disagreed and expanded: ‘What do traditional dances have to do with stripping there?
‘Me personally if my daughter was there I would be ashamed.’
The palace in Corfu was built over a five year period in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.
The defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 saw the Ionian Islands, including Corfu, become a protectorate of the UK through the Treaty of Paris.
In turn, Corfu became the seat of the British Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands.
It was Sir Thomas Maitland who commissioned the Palace of St. Michael and St. George as the official residence for the Lord High Commissioner.
There was a boom in Regency architecture building across Britain and its overseas holdings after the end of the Napoleonic Wars as government spending steadily recovered and timber shortages eased without the war demand.
Closer to home, examples of Regency architecture can be seen in the work of John Nash across London.
Britain revived some of the classical architectural styles of the Greeks and Romans during its imperial rise, after architects like Inigo Jones brought back to the British Isles techniques recovered by the Italians through the 16th and 17th centuries.
