Skatexpress at Charity Ball

Me and two of my rollerdance partners, Jim and Marjo, had committed to perform an act at the Charity Ball of MAGliss'XS, the profit of which is going to go to the "Toiles Enchantées" association, fighting for cinema to be available to hospitalized children.

"When children cannot go to the movies,

the movies should come to them"

REHEARSALS

The ball was a skating night with an ice disco preceeded by a show, and took place in the ice rink of Asnières, in the close Parisian suburbs.

RollerCon '12, Las Vegas: Night Life

Last year's RollerCon was an Epic Fail for me. Remember...

This year was faaar better and I could enjoy all the facets of the event. At least the two main ones: Day life (i.e. skating) and Night life (i.e. partying).

At first, I had decided that I was going to the RollerCon for a special purpose: SKATING.

...But then I started to take an interest into the EVENING schedule.

1. The whole thing about standing in lines to attend classes and wearing full gear on was part of why I only bothered attending on-skate classes the first 2-3 days, when it was not yet totally crowded. (see part.1)
2. The other reason was that I was sore all over (I confess) because it was the first time in 8 months that I was doing REAL derby moves. No matter how hard you train off-skates in rehab, there is nothing like the real thing. At least, I was glad I had the time to loosen up a bit on skates with my resuming of rollerdancing a couple of months before! 
3. The last main reason why I got more flexible with attending on-skate classes, was that I also had a go at partying (I confess too) and that it obviously became harder to be effective at day-time...

La Grosse Rollerdisco de Paris at La Main Jaune

The ONWHEELZ rollerdisco party was back yesterday evening and took over a mythical place in the Parisian history of roller-skating for a very special occasion...

Created in 2007, the OnWheelz is coordinated by my rollerdancer friend Jim and it is none other than the reference skating party in Paris.

It is not settled in a particular place because we have no roller-rinks in Paris (even in France, I know it is sad) so that there are only one or two events organized per year. It used to take place in a sports hall that we, derbygirls, know pretty well by now as it is our bout place.

Unfortunately for the event, the hall went from private to public, which means that it has to close at a "decent" time at night if it is to be booked... but midnight is more about starting than stopping partying.

Last year, the bet was taken to create a "before party" followed by a roller derby demo [video], but partying with the sunlight filtering through the roof windows lacks rock'n roll.

Lipsticks & Mouthguards

 "Rouge à Lèvres et Protège Dents" was the title of the bout opposing the Paris Rollergirls B Team, the Quedalles, to Anvers's One Love Roller Dolls (10 A-players out of 14) on Saturday 14th, for the Titanic's 100th anniversary and my dad's birthday.

It was organized in Lille, half-way between the two cities, on the occasion of the "Quinzaine de l'Entorse" (Two weeks of the Infringement Association) in partnership with the "Rencontres Féministes" (Feminist Encounters Association). These Two Weeks, the aim of which is to highlight links between arts and sports, have been perpetrated for a few years now...

With Wonka, we were put up at one of the organizers' apartment, a two-storey place she shares with  three other flatmates. Great place, great people!

Derby Invaders at the Disco

 Remember the OnWheelz disco party of last June?

Well... it went like this!

ONWHEELZ 11JUIN 2011 from rollerjim on Vimeo.

Royal Rolling Roller Disco

And... Here is another Roller-Disco event!

Two in two weekends, never seen that. This time, I really enjoyed it. The place was very small, it was in the shooting studio "Abel 14". It was organized by the Artdicted Group. The theme was 80s and 90s revival. I should have been a go-go dancer for the evening (i.e. being paid to rollerjam, that's all), but I had freestyle demos during the day and couldn't make it on time for the relooking session. Finally it was probably better this way, given the looks of my friends who got the "job"!

Lots of Derby girls showed up too -- including a couple of Swedish, the music was very efficient, there were off-skate go-go dancers who were impressive...

KEWL! Impatiently waiting for the next one!

OnWheelz DiscoRoller

In France, there are no roller-rinks, no roller-discos, no real flat indoor spaces devoted to skating... From time to time some punctual events are organized and we can go clubbing on wheelz! The OnWheelz Discos are organized by my friend Jim (whom I rollerdance with). He used to do three nights per year until last year when the place he used to book became a municipal gym.

Just like every year, there is this big LGBT event called the TIP (Tournois International de Paris) gathering sports teams and associations from all Europe, with animations by all the represented sports.

-- By the way, I had the indescribable chance to find myself on one of the promotion flyers saying "Chloé does sport to fight against discriminations, come and join her!"... Long story.

 

The only LGBT skating association, Les Enrolleres, where I give Slalom-skating lessons, was taking part in this huge event. And along with Jim they decided to organize a new edition of the OnWheelz as part of the Tournament. The biggest difficulty was to manage to get enough people despite the early hours: having become the city's property, the gym had to close at 00 AM... This time, the OnWheelz is going to be a "Before" party.

The originality of this edition was the Roller-Derby Demo at the end!

I was in charge of it, having to take care of several organization stuffs and coordinating the PRG and Jim. I had been named Captain of Team Awesome, and my friend Cherry LieLie was Captain of Team Amazing, so things got quite simple because we easily agree with each other. We found tee-shirts for the two teams on which we drew the numbers of all the girlz. I made a music playlist for the show. We agreed on a little presentation -- which didn't turn that well because it's tough without rehearsal haha.

Other things didn't turn out as expected... little misunderstandings here and there. But it got better after explanations.