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OJAI MAGAZINE | SPRING 2022
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ate last fall, a hundred people rolled into the Skating Plus rink in Ventura on a Saturday night, dressed in flared velour, neon hot pants, and sequined jumpsuits. The DJ spun vinyl classics: The Beatles, Blondie, and David Bowie while the disco ball swirled scattered circles along the walls. The time machine was set back to 1975, and skaters from Ojai and Santa Barbara toe-heeled and grape-vined to the beat, holding hands and spinning fast enough to release all the stress the pandemic had pent up. “It’s Studio 54 on wheels,” says Chase Elder, private chef and founder of Roller Disco Ojai, a group that hosts such quarterly community events for skaters to come out and vibe together. “There’s so much nostalgia here, any song that has that dnt chnn dnt chnn — music that’s hitting that base and that beat — brings us back to childhood, a time when things were easier, more carefree.” Skaters breeze by, flowing freely in rhythm and unabashedly unleashing the kind of joy that’s too often kept hidden under the intensity and scrutiny of middle age. “We all leave our stress at the door and let this excited, wild energy wash over us. Disco is the blanket for all of that — which is why it was the choice music for everyone who was skating in the ‘70s. Hip-hop and R&B have it, too, slightly slowed down and much sexier. This style of jam-skating originated in and is dominated by the African American community. Someone else is responsible for this and while we get to enjoy it, I’m always trying to honor the founding fathers.” Roller skating has a rich history in the Black community. During the 1940s and ‘50s, African Americans protested, picketed, and staged sit-ins to uphold their right to remain in the rink, many of which were still segregated through the 1960s. Though many see the roller movement as only recently making a comeback, for the Black community, it never left. That history was often dismissed as the surge of skate culture continued well into the 1970s and 1980s, solidifying skating as an event for black communities to come together — it was somewhere they could gather for purpose and pleasure. “That doesn’t surprise me at all,” says Cierra Nielson, Meiners Oaks mother of
Roller Disco is Back, Baby by JESSICA CIENCIN HENRIQUEZ
three, “when you’re skating, you’re not thinking about what’s happening in the world because you’re in your own world. In those moments when you’re on loop 50 or 60 around the rink, you’re totally in tune with your body, connecting to the beat and the sound of wheels rolling on wood. I think that’s what makes it so appealing and so terrifying at the same time. Not many people are comfortable being in their bodies.” Prior to the pandemic, many skaters in Ojai hadn’t laced up since they were teenagers. “I was surprised at how much I remembered,” says Tristan Thames, a craftsman born and raised in the Ojai Valley. Though he skated through his
childhood and teenage years, one day he took his skates off, and it was a decade before he put them on again. “That’s just how it is, life happens, and we grow up and have bills to pay, and we all just sort of forget how to play,” says Elder, “When I moved here four years ago, I knew there was a need for something like this. I wanted to bring people together in the same way they’d meet at the club. I wanted to create an event where people could come out and move to music, separate but together.” Elder spent her 20s in New York City as a club promoter; bringing people together for a good time is what she does best. To Elder, the goal of roller skating is not to look good
