B:C:Clettes Co-operation is Revolution
Photography: Oker Chen
The natural world can be construed as a series of rythmically repeating patterns and cycles; rythms can describe and facilitate the understanding of the passage of the seasons and their effects on the growth of plants and the habits of humans and other animals. They rule the functions of our bodies, the circumference of our routines , and even the methods of our pleasure.
To many readers, the best example of a cyclical rhythm is the repeated rotation of a chain ring until they are satisfied with where it has brought them. And in March 2006, a satisfying destination was the BikeBikeBike Party at the PEDAL bike depot, where one could witness the debut performance of Vancouver’s premiere bike-dance squad, the B:C:Clettes, putting into action their slogan, “Co-operation is revolution.”
Bike-dance? Though the first ride on the first bicycle could be described as a kind of dance between the equal parties of rider and vehicle, more involved and nuanced types of bicycle performance have since been devised, running the gamut from aesthetic display to circus spectacle.
The B:C:Cettes originally drew inspiration from the Sprockettes, a bold pink and black ensemble of women from the bike freak Mecca of Portland, Oregon, who made a big splash at Seattle’s Dead Baby Downhill in 2005. Performing dance routines incorporating mini-bikes, they demonstrated hitherto unimagined possibilities to a visiting Vancouver contingent from the Margaret Charles Chopper Collective.
“Our jaws dropped,” said Cara Fisher, recounting the moment the LED headlamp lit up over their heads. “We had never seen any kind of bike dance performance before. It was a kind of performance and expression that was completely new to us.” Within a month they had brought home their discovery, inviting the Sprockettes to perform at PedalPlay’s Velomutation party.
Leaving the Sprockettes’ mini-bikes in favour of charting Terra incognita, the B:C:Clettes incorporate props and movements from all avenues of bicycle practice for their performances: wheel rims, flashing reflectors, helmets, maintenance tools, and hand turn signals all find their way out of intersections and workshops and into dance routines. The Clettes also draw upon the very best part of bike use: the positive, self-empowered bearing and perspective bicycles eventually engender in their regular users.
Despite the group’s superficial appearance of having a single, two-wheeled premise, they engage in a number of serious issues, albeit in a fun fashion. Celebrating the bicycle in daily life is deceptively straightforward, but in fact it is but one facet of the colossal urban transportation and environmental bugaboo that will dominate world politics in the coming century. Gender issues also spin behind the scenes: the Clettes embrace the domain of dance while rejecting its frequent stereotypically sexy movements that appeal to the male gaze. Also, in keeping with the axiom that you have to create the world you want to see, the internal workings of the collective are resolutely nonhierarchical.
Lao Tzu remarked that it’s the space at the centre of the wheel that makes it useful, and that may be the case with the whirling women here: there is no chief, chair, or even first among equals. Though the roster includes long-established fixtures of the Vancouver bicycle community, when membership recently doubled, these grease-smeared titans did not settle naturally into positions of authority over bright-eyed, fresh-faced bike novices. Instead, individual members contribute with their strengths as an ad hoc meritocracy where each member provides according to their ability, and every other member learns by example.
The B:C:Clettes boast a set of skills broad and diverse: some will plunder their music collections for suitable backing tracks while scheduling whizzes handle bookings and mark rehearsals on calendars, coaxing out the times and dates most good for the most members. Still others from a dance background may suggest snazzy moves or pragmatic warm up tips.
Perhaps if high school physical education curricula had incorporated more vigorous, goofy fun such as these co-operative, collaborative dance presentations, we would be a nation united more by ParticipACTION* than by Tim Horton’s. While none of the Clettes ever aspired to become a bicycle dancer, a common thread among them tapped into hazy memories of bygone times, ones of air bands and lip-synch silliness with friends at slumber parties, before the cliquishness of adolescence brought awkwardness and alienation - qualities some still feel emanating from the outwardly affluent, white, straight, jockish, male, and generally hetero-normative commercial cyclist culture of North America that installs bike racks atop SUVs.
Dance also is an activity that, though coming naturally to every child, eventually estranges most of us from the movements of our own bodies, and is foolishly left for the feline professionals born with the right bone structure and single-digit body fat percentages. Still, subconsciously, the body remembers. You might say it’s like riding a bike!
Fortunately for us, the members of the B:C:Clettes have managed to overcome initial misgivings of belonging neither to the world of bikes nor dancing, and have ended up sitting pretty (in radical red and black) at their point of overlap. If you think they’ve gotten there by being twice as exclusive, you flunk their new math of accessibility, but don’t worry – they’ll make a quick study out of you. While being a cyclist is an obvious criterion, the only other hard and fast rule of membership is that you must be committed to the group – and to having a lot of fun in it!
Having fun as a B:C:Clette does not seem to pose any great difficulty: to say that their undertakings have been well received by the home crowd is an understatement – the admiring audiences cheer themselves hoarse, and even the rehearsals are full of smiles and laughs. “It’s a lot of work,” reports RedSara, “but it’s fun work.”
The group came full circle to dance at this year’s Dead Baby Downhill in August, and by MOMENTUM press time will have shared a stage in Portland with their mentors, the Sprockettes. The not yet one-year-old B:C:Clettes aspire beyond bike-use re-affirmation, towards bicycle advocacy and outreach for folks who, for whatever reason, aren’t yet grooving on two wheels.
Epilogue: For every splash there are ripples. In the wake of the Sprockettes’ visits and the B:C:Clettes’ debut, Vancouver is now home to mini-bike boy-lesque from the five-member “Brakes,” as well as a bombastic Bollywood-style costume and dance presentation on transportation alternatives by the Work Less Party’s “Dancebellys.”
*ParticipACTION was a non-profit campaign (“Don’t just think about it, Do it! Do it! Do it!”) using radio, TV, and print advertising to promote active, healthy lifestyles. It began in 1973 and became defunct in 1998, but its memory lives on at the ParticipACTION Archive: www.usask.ca/archives/participaction/
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