Four-wheel jive

A show celebrating roller-skating from its beginning to modern times rolls into town this weekend.

Humorist and author Charles Phoenix, who entertains audiences by creating comical slide shows of photographs he’s collected, will give his take on the history of the sport Saturday and Sunday at Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale.

Titled “Charles Phoenix Presents the Moonlight Rollerway Jubilee,” the show kicks off with Phoenix’s slide show, followed by champion skaters from the local rink and guests who will put on a production of routines spanning from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Phoenix’s humorous look at roller-skating starts in the 1700s and continues right up through the end of the golden era — the roller boogie disco era in the late 1970s, Phoenix said.

“What changed was that roller blades took off in the ’80s, even though they’d been introduced in 1962,” Phoenix said. “Roller-skating isn’t quite as popular as it was in the ’30s ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. It has gone the way of drive-in movies and car-hop restaurants. And that’s why I’m dong this. It’s a novelty to see a roller-skating performance in today’s world.”

Roller-skating is still a competitive sport, but the only people who really see it are other skaters, he said. There aren’t a lot of skating shows put on for the public.

Moonlight Rollerway is one of the last vintage rinks in the area, Phoenix added.

After the slide show, groups and individuals will put on a variety show.

“Like an old-fashioned revue,” Phoenix said.

The reigning U.S. skating champion group, Team In Sync, will perform, as will other groups that skate at Moonlight Rollerway and guests from other rinks, said skating coach and choreographer Tammy Gantz Patino of Burbank.

“I have 70 people performing from ages 7 to 60, and since Charles’ theme is all based on Americana, I’ve tried to base all the numbers around that to keep with the nostalgic theme,” she said.

Americana is evident in the kickoff number, which incorporates a farm or cowboy theme, Gantz Patino said.

“We have parents of skaters dressed up as farmers and skating chickens and cows with sequined udders,” she said.

There is a 1940s number that has a medley of songs from that era, she said.

“It’s sort of a Fred-Astaire-and-Ginger-Rogers type of performance, and then we do a routine to Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood,’” she said.

Then a group coming from Victorville will do a 1950s “Rock Around the Clock” number followed by a swinging ’60s sequence to Nancy Sinatra’s version of “These Boots Were Made for Walking.”

To kick off the 1970s segment, professional singer Fred Tallaksen, who sang in the U.S. and Canadian tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Starlight Express,” will sing “I Am the Starlight.”

The show’s finale is a 1970s roller disco.

Rink owner Dominic Cangelosi will accompany the skaters on the rink’s Hammond organ, Gantz Patino said.

“He plays at regional and national championships, and he also has a business where he records and sells CDs that people purchase and practice to,” she said.

Cangelosi believes the show may signal a resurgence of roller-skating.

“It just makes me feel like roller-skating is becoming something of interest again,” he said. “Charles has a following, and many of them on his mailing list haven’t seen skating in this form before, and they are all excited about coming. It’s a more artistic side of the roller-skating world.”