Male Dancers Wanted (Experience Not Necessary) (PHOTOS)

Last week at the New York Art Book Fair, an extraordinary collection of previously unpublished photographs, taken in a strip club in New York in 1976, was presented by the French publishers Manon Lutanie and Raphaele Godin.

In the photography book, Male Dancers Wanted (Experience Not Necessary), Gilles Bonnecarrère, who is now based in Paris, reflects on how he discovered this underground world:

New York, 1976. I am 23 years old. The house where I was living, wedged between two buildings at 42 Water Street, has just burned down. All that it held is gone. On a bench in Battery Park I find an old Village Voice with the following ad: 'Male Dancers Wanted (experience not necessary).' On 46th Street, near Broadway, I climb the narrow staircase up to a cashier's window. Denise, the boss, says: 'Are you here for the job? Come in, have a look, see if you can do it.'