Up close and reunited: Dew Tour 2021

Geographically, the whole skatepark fits between 2nd Avenue—the last street on the west side of the river—and the Des Moines River where I’m standing right now. It’s dark and the lights shimmer across the water, gently carrying the energy of Dew Tour into the rest of the city, still mostly quiet on a Friday night.

It strikes me as strange that you could live in Des Moines and never know anything out of the ordinary was happening this weekend, let alone anything life-changing, but if you don’t drive by or don’t check the news, you might miss it. “It” is the new Lauridsen Skatepark, small enough to fit into the palm of my hand from my vantage point. In actuality, it’s the largest skatepark in the US and for the weekend, it’s the home of the only stateside Olympic qualifying event in 2021.

When I heard a new huge skatepark was being built in Des Moines, I thought it would look bigger. I thought it would fully transform the landscape of downtown. I thought there would be miles and miles of concrete rather than this hidden rectangle.

But sometimes things only feel big up close.

On Thursday morning, I had a ticket to Dew Tour, so I stood next to the metal barricade, as close to the edge of the event as I could get, clutching my film camera under my leather jacket to protect it from the drizzle. And in that moment, just feet away from where the concrete scoops abruptly into a deep bowl, I knew with absolute certainty that I better not ever fall in because I do not have the skills to scramble out, let alone actually skate in it; if I got stuck in the bottom I’d just accept my fate as the Rapunzel of the skatepark and ask to be sent pizza and water because I’d never make it up again.

From across the Des Moines River the next night, I marveled at how small the event looked because I knew firsthand how massive it felt up close.

When I started exploring the idea of shooting Dew Tour, I thought that the event itself was the story. But as I talked to Kim of Skate Like A Girl, I learned that, yes, the event was the place, the happening, the occasion, but the story was something else: something you could only see close up. The real story was the people.

Just like the skatepark, people aren’t something you can see or know from far away. You’ve got to be up close to feel what the real story means. From afar, if you’re watching the event online or on TV or even in person, it looks like a bunch of folks of a bunch of ages from a bunch of places who are really good at what they do and all in the same place doing it. But when you get closer, it’s bigger than that.

What you wouldn’t know just by looking from the outside is that the 2021 Dew Tour is the first time many of the skaters have seen each other in almost 2 years. Yes, skateboarding has become a competitive sport, but it’s also a community.

My hope is these photos and this story are a glimpse of the bigness of the women’s skateboarding community up close, so you can experience it, too, if only in an article. The photos are not a magnifying glass because a magnifying glass takes something small and makes it bigger.

They’re more like a window, a vantage point, that lets you into something to see it just as it is: big and real and up close and beautiful in its candor and care.

I spent an evening at Bartender’s Handshake—one of my favorite neighborhood spots in Des Moines—with a group of folks, just listening and documenting their camaraderie and joy. They welcomed me in, sat next to me, asked me questions, and did the same for each other. I know how big it feels up close because they offered me a seat at their table: literally. As I learned, that’s the beauty of the women’s skating community: they have built their own table and anyone is welcome. There’s no pre-requisite in skill or style or city or age or gender. I don’t even skate and I was welcome. You’re here and because you’re here, you’re at the table and you belong, and I don’t think anything feels bigger and more beautiful than that.

Words and photos: Liz Brown