By Hannah Corcoran, First-year, English
Roller disco, with its origins in the 1970s, is a relatively recent phenomenon, but the history of the roller skate itself extends further back. Epigram explores the history of rolling on eight wheels and speaks with Bristol-based BUMP Roller Disco about the current skating landscape.
Roller disco is a kind of dance. Combining skating with music, it requires you to be grounded, to consider both yourself and those around you – if you fall, you’ll never be the only one to do so. Roller disco can also be a great way to meet new people. Improving your overall fitness is a bonus.
A fitting comparison is perhaps between roller skating and driving. Indeed, there are indeed many crossovers: checking your blind spots for erratic road/rink users and bearing in mind stopping distances. How the DVSA haven’t mandated roller skaters to pass their theory tests is baffling. Another similarity is the difficulty of achieving a smooth stop – unsurprising, considering it took 100 years for the toe stop to be invented after the first roller skate.
The first record of roller skates was in a 1743 theatre production in which actors affixed wheels to their footwear to mimic ice skating on the stage. In England, around 1760, inventor John Joseph Merlin attempted to showcase his roller skate design at a masquerade ball. But with no way of stopping or steering, he crashed into an expensive mirror.
It wasn’t until over a century later, in the 1870s and 80s, that roller skating rinks were built for leisure, mostly in New England. The craze then spread to the UK by the 1910s and was prescribed as early as 1913 as a ‘valuable form of exercise’.
However, roller skating has not always been an inclusive sport – an issue that the industry continues to face today. In the U.S., de facto racially segregated rinks remained the norm even after the codification of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Excluded from attending many white-owned roller rinks, Black skaters fought for integrated skating rinks, using ‘skate-ins’ as early as the 1940s – in many instances a precursor to ‘sit-ins’ – as a form of civil disobedience. However, white rink owners responded by offering exclusionary ‘Black’ and ‘white’ nights, where Black skaters were usually only permitted to skate one night a week.
As a result, Black owners set up rinks where a fusion of roller skating, music, and dance was celebrated. It was here that the famed roller disco was born.
Roller disco’s history is also intrinsically tied to the LGBTQ+ community. Theatre scholar, Melissa Lin Sturges, contends that roller disco is a ‘subliminally, but definitely, queer practice’. She views Bill Butler’s – aka ‘The Godfather of Roller Disco’ – and Elin Schoen’s manual as indirect ‘instruction for [...] queer activism’. Butler describes the rink as an ‘arena of style and improvisation’, which affiliates roller disco with Ballroom Culture, and advises to ‘fall with as much confidence as you skate’.
The Ferrari of the day was Edvard Petrini’s ‘Takypod’ pedalled roller skate – a must-have for any eligible bachelor circa 1910. The Takypod might have been a short-lived fad, in comparison to the legacy of 1970s roller fashion that can be traced to athleticwear today: a neon stripe down the leg of an otherwise nondescript pair of leggings is a nod to its disco ancestors.
To better understand the enduring appeal of roller skating, Epigram tried it for themselves at BUMP Roller Disco.
Open six out of seven days a week, BUMP has been in Bristol since 2006. First based in Millennium Square, the business now has an indoor rink in St Jude’s, which opened in January 2024.
As you walk into an unassuming warehouse, past the ticket office, and through a set of double doors, there is a counter to your right, behind which a member of the BUMP team will store your shoes in exchange for skate hire, and just beyond is a seating area for changing into skates. Straight ahead are the toilets, and slightly to the left is a doorway leading to lockers and the bar. To the left is the rink itself, where you can find a mixture of new skaters at the rinkside and seasoned pros practising spins in the middle. BUMP is open plan and all on one level, so you can take rest breaks in the adjacent seating area.
The venue is also equipped with air hockey, a bar, a DJ booth, a (soon to open) karaoke room, and even a shop to purchase light-up roller wheels – necessary for both style and to alert fellow skaters of your presence.
Here, talent is in no short supply, with professional skaters frequenting the rink. One of them is Jason Johnson, Guinness World Record holder for the most consecutive 360-degree rotations on roller skates. 15 spins would’ve beaten the record. He completed 23.
Epigram spoke with Lindsay Griffin, the founder of BUMP, to understand more about what the roller disco landscape is like today.
On the origins of BUMP, Lindsay explained: ‘We used to be a club night first of all, so it was a dance party, not a roller disco. We did that for three years [then] we got bored of doing dance parties and realised we wanted to make a roller disco [...] We did our first roller disco at Motion [...] combining it with one of our friends’ parties in one of the warehouses.’
With Motion now set to close as its tenancy ends, the conversation turns to the challenges BUMP faces in today’s climate, particularly amid the wave of small music venues shutting down due to the cost-of-living crisis. Lindsay reflects on the struggles and resilience of the scene:
‘It’s always a battle to [...] get the rent paid [...] fix/secure buildings that are affordable. At the moment we have a warehouse, but [...] in the future we don’t know how long we’ll have it for. It will be getting knocked down to become flats for students.’
Having recently taken over the warehouse from which they operate, BUMP are now responsible for all the costs. Fortunately, current circumstances are good: ‘We get our premises a little bit cheaper [...] we’ve got a great landlord that helps us out. We get given opportunities that allow us to go ahead, but the costs are still a lot each month.’
However, BUMP is not exclusively tied to Bristol. It also boasts the only fully equipped mobile roller rink in the country, which is available for events like festivals and weddings. On the most unusual event her team has catered for, Lindsay told Epigram: ‘We went to more challenging events where the demographic has been older. We went to Rewind festival. We [also] did one in Ireland where the crowd was probably 35+. And when they fall, unfortunately, we were getting lots of injuries. It was a bit of a challenging event, that one.’
Roller skating can be done inside or outside, but Lindsay told Epigram: ‘I prefer indoor skating. Outdoor skating is nice, and during lockdown [...] we used to go to Brean to escape the house and do something that felt kind of normal. But yeah, I prefer indoor venues. I think the venue that we’ve got now is probably my favourite so far. It’s got a great floor, lots of space, great seating […] lots of room for people to go skating.’
Speaking of skating adventures, Epigram asked Lindsay about where her love of skating comes from: ‘When I was a little girl [...] going out to play in my roller skates, with all the other people in the street.’ Lindsay echoes Bill Butler’s sentiment that once you start skating, the likelihood is you won’t stop. You need a reliable pair of skates if roller disco is a lifelong passion.
When asked about whether she has a favourite pair of skates, Lindsay told Epigram of her Chicago Sure Grip Dance Skates – ‘they’re really comfy.’ We can also confirm that Lindsay has a pair of light-up wheels.
Any thriving roller disco needs a great soundtrack. Epigram asked Lindsay if she has a favourite song to jam to: ‘I don’t really have one favourite song [...] I like skating to R&B music; I like skating to disco and house [...] Music that’s got a good beat to it.’
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Though the future of roller disco might look a bit BUMPy, that certainly won’t stop Lindsay and her team from rolling with it – a reassuring thought to hear, considering the challenges roller venues across the UK face today. The history of roller discos has never been smooth, but owners, marshals, attendees, and lovers of the rink deserve the peace of mind that the groove, community, and joy of the roller disco will continue.
Featured Image: Gil Xanders / Unsplash
Have you ever tried roller disco?
