Stripper Energy

Best of KPBS Podcasts brings the best of KPBS storytelling to our listeners. Each episode features curated highlights from across the KPBS podcast lineup, paired with conversations with the producers and hosts. This episode features the podcasts Cinema Junkie & Stripper Energy

After decades of fighting abuse from San Diego’s vice squad and finally securing dancers’ rights, Kata Pierce-Morgan turned her “stripper energy” to a new creative outlet – producing shows for San Diego International Fringe Festival that tap into Les Girls history. Plus sex worker-activists turn to Fringe Festivals to use art to advocate for sex worker rights and to challenge stereotypes. In this...

After more than a decade of sexual harassment, coerced encounters, and psychological abuse by San Diego vice, Kata Pierce-Morgan and her fellow Les Girls dancers were ready to tap into their stripper energy and fight back. If polite society and the legal system were not going to help them end the abuse, then they would take matters into their own hands. If no one was willing to believe a bunch of...

How dare a stripper, a fringe woman, not stay silent and compliant as vice officers sexually harassed her ... and worse. And how dare Kata Pierce-Morgan challenge stereotypes and fight back? But Les Girls Theater had a history of fighting back starting with its owner James Morgan who spoke up against police abuse to a county Grand Jury in the hopes that the California Attorney General would crack...

Les Girls Theater scored a victory in the censorship battle but that only intensified an escalating war with the police who found new ways to harass the Les Girls dancers. They routinely endured a climate of fear as vice cops would arrest them but not file charges. In this chapter: Kata Pierce-Morgan, poet, activist, former dancer, current owner of Les Girls Theater Pepper, former dancer and cashi...

Kata Pierce’s life changed when she met James Morgan, a Texas Baptist Republican who challenged censorship and police abuse of power. Both Kata and Jim refused to be silent bystanders and that had consequences. Find out how a raid on Jim’s Left Bank establishment led to him opening Les Girls Theater and staging what was referred to as “The Censorship Play.” In this chapter: Kata Pierce-Morgan, poe...

Do you know what stripper energy is? Let three women who worked as dancers at Les Girls Theater in San Diego expose you to the naked truth about what being a dancer was like in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. While dancers today may bristle at the term stripper, Kata Pierce-Morgan embraced it in the 1970s and fought against the stereotypes with what she calls “stripper energy.” In this chapter: Kata Pierc...

Join me under the neon glow of the historic Les Girls Theater for “Stripper Energy: Fighting Back from the Fringes.” Former dancer and current owner of Les Girls Theater, Kata Pierce-Morgan, provides unlimited access to a half century of archival material that uncovers a dark chapter of San Diego history from the 1970s and 80s. Kata has been turning chapters from her life and the history of Les Gi...