show to benefit Lotus Seed Ashram

Come help us celebrate and build community. This Friday, June 5th, the Sprockettes will be at the Lotus Seed Ashram for a big, family-friendly fundraising event. The Lotus Seed folks are looking to buy the former church that currently houses their center so they can continue offering their services and outreach in the place they love to call home. Their mission statement says “The Lotus Seed is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing yoga, movement, and art to underserved populations through outreach programs and continued education.”

We’ll be performing around 7pm, but festivities will be going on before and after that. There will be a bike parade following our dancing.

Check it out:

Friday…7pm…4635 NE 9th Avenue (NE 9th at NE Going).

zoobomb pyle dedication

This is it! The Sprockettes are beginning the summer performance season starting now! We’ll be dancing around 6:30pm  at the new pyle, a phenomenal new art installation/Zoobomb pile. Look for Chain Reaction dancing too! Come celebrate with us as a new era of bike piling and artistic collaboration dawns. We certainly aim to prioritize awesomeness.

This installation and event were made possible by collaborations with Portland’s Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Bureau of Transportation, and some fabulous local artists, Brian Borrello and Vanessa Renwick.

http://zoobomb.net

Zoobomb is a 5 year running weekly bike event that meets every Sunday around 8:30PM across from Rocco’s Pizza (949 SW Oak) in Portland OR. Bring a bike, MAX fare ($2.00), bike lights, and any safety gear you want to wear.
It’s a good time and you WILL have fun!
MINI BIKES ENCOURAGED – ALL BIKES WELCOME
HELMETS ARE A GOOD IDEA
* RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK *
LEAVE NO TRACE

summer dreamin

This is not actually all that far-fetched of an idea for us. As long as those polka dots are black on hot pink, anything is possible.

Stay tuned because very soon we’ll have our summer show  dates up. There are lots of local shows and events and some more Tour de Fat touring action.

And honestly, we have commissioned the building of a sound system that might not be pedal-powered, but it will hit the streets with us, pulled by a bike. We’ll just say it will power our pedals.

what we’re about

We just wanted to share with you some lovely art by an old friend, Andy Singer. Likely you’ve seen his social and political commentary cartoons on bumper stickers, t-shirts, billboards, the sides of buses in large cities, prime time TV ads, in the contrails left by major airlines.  He even makes books and calendars.

As we prepare our summer line-up of dances, acrobatics, and bike antics, we thought it would be nice to glance at a reminder of how beautiful and powerful the bike can be.

Please enjoy this cartoon sample by Andy and go to his website to see some more.  Pedal on.

Hollis is home

The Sprockettes want to extend a warm thank you from the bottom of our collective heart to anyone and everyone who has supported Hollis, her family, and her community.

Hollis arrived in San Francisco this afternoon from India. The family is really busy getting everything in order, but we expect more blogs and more news when it’s possible for them to make it to a computer. Please stay actively in the loop and keep track of events and news on the family’s blog for her at http://helpholligethome.blogspot.com/.

Again, the good vibes, the loving energy, and the money everyone dug down deep to give have all been crucial to get Hollis where she is now.

Peace.

Benefit show to bring Hollis back to the US, Tuesday, March 10.

Sprockettes Agents are working closely with our community to hold a FUNdraiser next Tuesday, March 10,  to get our friend Hollis back to the US.  There will be  members of the Yard Dogs Road Show, Japanther, Riot Cop, Drunken Boat, Early Times, the Sprockettes, a kissing booth, silent auction, and many other surprises.

The event will be held at 316 NW 4th Ave. (where the Mini-Bike Winter party was). Doors at 7pm, show starts promptly at 8pm. Wear gold! $5-150,000 at the door!!! Please come, tell your friends, and tell those who can’t come to donate online. Every little bit helps enormously!

Family has set up another site to answers questions about Hollis’ condition. http://helpholligethome.blogspot.com/

You are still able to check friendsofhollis.blogspot.com to learn about ways to support the effort.

Both sites are accepting donations to reach their goal of $150,000 to air ambulance her back to the US as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Needing Prayers of Golden Light-A Tradegy in our Greater Bike Family

We hate sad news, but we are  seeking prayers and thoughts of golden light for our bike dance sister, Agent Verve – Ms.Hollis Hawthorne, of the Bay Area Derailleurs.

She is in a coma in Pondicherry, India after a motorcycle accident.  Hollis was integral to starting the Bay Area Derailleurs & truly a sister of our collective bike dance community.  It is with great sadness that we report news of such gravity.  Hollis is a woman of strength & true zest for life – please join The Sprockettes, The Derailleurs, and the greater bicycle community as we send love and light to Hollis.

Agent Chaos – of Sprockettes & Derailleurs has set up a blogspot for info on Hollis.  A fund to help cover expenses for Hollis & her family will be set up in the near future.  Please visit the website for updates on information and spread the word to your groups.
www.friendsofhollis.blogspot.com

With love, golden light, and solidarity for our bike dance sister -

Sprockettes Planning to take it the the MAX and go All Zone this Summer

Last weekend the Sprockettes held our summer planning meeting and here is the latest….

Once again we are excited for another busy season, in and out of Portland and we are looking forward to reaching out to the communities where we believe need inspiration the most, the ‘burbs. We are gearing up for a new summer and decided to “take it to the MAX” by going “All Zone”. We plan on heading out in all directions at least once during the season. If anyone is interested in us performing in the ‘burbs off of one of the MAX lines or in Portland, please contact us at sprockettes@gmail.com. We are looking for shows that pertain more to our mission and possibly in conjunction with larger events or rides like a Farmer’s Market, etc. Please keep that in mind when filling out our new booking form, as well as our new show requirements.

We are also combining efforts with the Community Cycling Center and participating in their summer bike camp for girls the first week of July.

Talks are also in the works for Tour de Fat dates.

We thank all those who make it possible for us to do the crazy things we do. If anyone is interested in helping us make this summer the best yet (i.e. snack, bike, or other pertinent donations etc. greatly appreciated), please contact us with ideas or details. We would love to hear from our community.

Thanks!
Hope to see ya in the streets-
Love the Sprockettes.

Mini Bike Winter VI

Wow, Mini Bike Winter is just around the corner and it’s going to rule beyond rule this year! For those of you who are new to this whole MBW thing, imagine an over the top weekend filled with bike events, bike dance performances, chariot wars, partying, dancing, costumes, and mayhem, all for free and all in the fine city of Portland, over the weekend of Feb. 13th-15th.

Yours truly will be performing at the super secret location warehouse party on Saturday, Feb. 14th sometime between 11pm-12am. But come for the entire night because you won’t want to miss all of the festivities: fashion show, silent auction, dance party, performances by The Sprockettes, Chain Reaction, Nerds on Wheels, music by Full Face Riot, Riot Cop, and more!

For a full lowdown of the weekend visit here: http://www.zoobomb.net/minibikewinter/

You won’t want to miss out on the most fun weekend to be had in the wintertime here in Portland!

updates to end another year with

Friends! Thank you for being with us for 2008 as we performed at Portland’s first ever Sunday Parkways (a 6-hour car-free 6 mile loop in N and NE PDX!), held a fabulous Bicycle Bash after-party for the Multnomah County Bike Fair, toured the west coast with Tour de Fat, and showed our hot pink and black spirit around Portland and Vancouver, B.C. We were part of a group that organized and put on an international Bike Dance Symposium where we created the B!ke CASCADIA community of bike dancers and activists. Go CASCADIA!! Go dance!!

In other news, the six year old across the street got his training wheels off the day after we did some maintanence in his bike at my place, but then his bike got thrown away when he got a flat tire. I’ve been spending some of this holiday vacation fixing up a completely rusted-out 12-incher I found in a free pile this fall. The pile was comprised of various sizes and styles of decrepit kids’ bikes left over from a Time-Based Art event in NE PDX. I grabbed three of them. I didn’t see the bike-art event, but my guess is art and performance with tiny bikes is likely to be unlimited in its capacity to intrigue audiences.

And in other In Other Words news, Portland’s feminist bookstore reported some amazing success in fundraising recently.  They are working on restructuring things to support their long-term sustainability. A quick update: “We will be able to pay back our short-term loan and begin digging ourselves out of debt. As phenomenal as this, we still need to raise another $8,000 by the end of February to meet our second goal, which will enable us to pay down our expiring line of credit. We are still encouraging our supporters to make tax-deductible donations if they’re able. We also encourage you to come buy 50% off books at our After Solstice Sale, which will be running January 12th-February 14th.”

See their website for more news and information regarding the organization, their fundraising, and how they got their roof fixed after it caved in with snow.

Those are some tidbits of things going on outside Sprockettes. As for what’s going on inside, we’ll let you know soon as we know!! Thanks to the Brutal Snow, Freezing Rain, And Ice Storm Extravaganza of 2008, Sprockettes had to cancel our last two practices of the year. None of us had DOT-approved chains for a our bike tires so we couldn’t make it to our practice space.  We hope that everyone is warm, safe, peaceful and cozy and ready to wrap up 2008.

We’ll see you in the new year!