USA Projects

Hi, my name is Tammy Gomez and I'm an urban bicyclist.  I live in Texas, a petroleum-oil-obsessed place, yet I don't own a car.  By choice.  As a published poet, award-winning playwright, and performance artist, I'm asking for your help in producing my bicycle theater play, SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE, in Austin Texas in 2012.  (See website at www.bikespokelove.com)

To adapt my original script for touring and present this innovative work

in Austin--cast, bicycles, and all--I'm asking you to help me raise $8,200.  I plan to scale back the cast (from eleven to about eight performers) to increase touring viability and update scene locations to reflect future performance venues.  Video segments will be produced and edited and new performers cast and rehearsed.  Development of the marketing, promotion, and transportation (touring) plans will be done in conjunction with the Mexican American Cultural Center and bicycling clubs and communities in Austin, Texas.  A schedule for Bike/Spoke/Love dialogues/platicas, to be conducted with community youth and audience members, will also be created.  These will take place post-performance and at youth centers and bike-related venues.

SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE premiered on World Car Free Day 2007 in Fort Worth, Texas--to standing room only audiences--and received praise & kudos from audiences and critics alike: ("Extreme Production Fascinates With Variety" - Mark Lowry, Fort Worth Star-Telegram). Audience members were inspired to start bicycling again--for some it was the first time since childhood.   One woman went out and bought a bicycle after seeing my show, while an older audience member--who suffered from heart problems--told me he was going to dig his bike out of the garage and start riding again!  This play makes bicycling sexy: the grace and economy of human-powered transportation strikes audiences as both appealing and environmentally sensible.

It features onstage choreographed bicycling, a turntablist, spoken word, video projections, and a story about young people in an ethnic community who care about the future of the planet and  the greening of the barrios. This work has legs, it has wheels, and--with your support--I can take this work to the bike-friendly city of Austin where it can be performed where other bicyclists and the eco-conscious convene: along the hike and bike trail of Town Lake, in co-production with the Mexican American Cultural Center which is located just off this trail.

The dialogues/platicas component of this project will allow community members to speak directly with me as playwright/director, as well as cast members, about our commitment to "greening the barrio" and the importance of transportation alternatives in urban neighborhoods of color which often lack mass transit routes and safe parks or roadways for bicycling.