| Radical Cheerleaders get serious about fun protest
Calgary’s Radical Cheerleaders admit their strength lies in their exuberance rather than their technical skills – but that’s something they hope to rectify when they attend a high-profile college cheerleading camp in Utah later this summer.
The group that gained notoriety by performing protest cheers on a hastily errected trampoline during the Showdown at the Hoedown as part of June’s G8 Summit protests is looking at picking up some legitimate skills from some serious students of the sport.
"We know we suck, that’s why we want to go down there. We want to get better," says Radical Cheerleader Alexis Holizki, laughing. "We’re serious about this."
Well, as serious as the Radical Cheerleaders can be. The idea of socially-conscious protest cheerleading emerged in Florida about a decade ago and has since spread around the world. Radical Cheerleaders have become as integral to the global justice movement as the elderly singing troupe, Raging Grannies.
Holizki’s squad isn’t the first Radical Cheerleaders in Calgary, but they’re definitely the first to attend a college cheerleading camp in the heart of cheerleading country. She says the group isn’t trying to mock the traditional cheerleader – she defends cheerleading as a legitimate sport and says it gets a bad rap partly because of sexism – they’re just hoping to inject a bit of fun into protest and teach a few people about global issues along the way.
"Our goal is supporting the social justice movement... but we’re trying to have some fun and show people there is a non-threatening face to activism and protest," she says. "We totally respect a diversity of tactics, but this is just our way of doing things."
They also gets a kick out of messing with people’s ideas about the traditional cheerleader. She says leering men who invade their practice space are greeted with pamphlets and directions to protest rallies rather than phone numbers.
"It’s amazing to me the ideas ingrained in people’s subconsious about cheerleaders," she says. "We have people taking pictures of our asses, even though we’re wearing ripped-up jeans, some of us don’t shave and we’ve been sweating for two hours." The group also has male members.
Holizki says it took a little work to convince the cheerleading camp organizers to accept the Radical Cheerleaders, and the squad has been raising money for the trip "outside the traditional economy," – which basically means, she explains, dumpster diving and collecting syrup-coated juice boxes from Stampede breakfasts. The group is also looking for donations to help.
The squad is a little nervous about their reception at the camp by other cheerleaders, but she thinks they’ll be accepted once everyone sees they are serious about improving their cheerleading skills.
"We’re going to work really hard and we think that will convince them," Holizki says.
After returning with their new-found skills, the group plans to keep up its work in Calgary. They already have plans to take part in a rally against sanctions in Iraq at the Harry Hays building on August 6. They have even written a new cheer for the occasion:
I - R - A - Q. Lacking food and medicine too/ U - S of A, makes Iraqi citizens pay.
Whether people agree with their politics or not, it’s tough to ignore that kind of exuberance. |
