Wham! Bam! Outta my way, ma'am!

TAUNTON -- It's 11 on Sunday night, and Silver City Skateland is closed to the public. But beyond the rink's doors, covered by metal grates, the almost-forgotten sport of roller derby is being revived.

Inside, the dull rumbling of roller skates echoes through the building as 14 women on wheels zip around orange cones in the center of the rink. The skaters are decked out in miniskirts, short shorts, and striped tube socks. One skater wears an Army helmet. Another has dreadlocks. Several sport tattoos.

''Get her! Get her, get her! Kill her!" Ivanna Clobber cheers her teammates on. ''Go, go, go! Push it through! C'mon, Missy! Help her out, help out your girl! Awesome, Switchblade!"

Clobber wears a fuzzy pink helmet, a green sleeveless shirt, and ripped fishnet stockings. Orange and red flames cover the toes of her roller skates. She watches as her cohorts race around and around the oval track.

Elbows fly. POW! Polyurethane wheels squeak as they skid across the shiny hardwood floor. A skater falls, and her body crashes to the floor. SLAM! She pops back up and returns to skating with the pack.

The girls in the black T-shirts are the Providence Mob Squad. The girls in the green are the Sakonnet River Roller Rats. They are the lone teams of Providence Roller Derby, the new full-contact women's roller derby league that ''combines athleticism with performance and sex appeal." They've been practicing every week at Silver City Skateland in Taunton, preparing for their first exhibition bout tomorrow at the Bank of America Skating Center in Providence.

That's right -- roller derby is back. The flamboyant sport that faded away with disco in the 1970s is enjoying a revival. Roller derby teams are popping up all across the country. In New York, Gotham Girls Roller Derby holds bouts in the Bronx. There are leagues in Arizona, North Carolina, Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, and Kansas City, Mo.

If Clobber has her way, Boston will be next. For now, the feisty roller skater commutes from Medford to skate with the Sakonnet River Roller Rats of the Providence league.

Providence Roller Derby was launched last summer by Sarah ''Doom" Kingan, who graduated from Brown University in 2002. After Brown, Kingan moved to Arizona and became involved with a roller derby league in Tucson. Last year she came to Massachusetts to pursue a PhD in evolutionary biology at Harvard.

But she didn't want to give up roller derby when she moved to Cambridge. So instead of hanging up her skates, the 26-year-old started a league of her own in Rhode Island, near the stamping grounds of her undergrad college days at Brown.

The women on the Providence Roller Derby squads range in age from 19 to 29 and have nicknames such as Tammy Guns and Hard Hearted Hannah. Several of them are students from the Rhode Island School of Design. Switchblade Sally works at a tattoo parlor. Another woman works at a liquor store.

''I really like the sport," said Kingan. ''It's really fun. You get to skate really fast and knock people down."

Kingan always enjoyed roller skating. As a girl growing up in Bolton, she skated at Roller Kingdom in Hudson. ''I used to skate a lot when I was a kid. You know, roller skating birthday parties, for kids growing up in the '80s that was kind of standard." Now she uses her skating skills on the oval roller derby track.

The object of the game is simple. In each bout, two teams skate in the same direction around the track, battling to accumulate points. Each has a ''jammer," a skater who wears a star on her helmet and can score points for her team. Both jammers try to score points by passing members of the opposing team. Meanwhile, the ''blockers" on the opposing team try to stop them, while helping their own jammers through the pack.

Blockers can use any part of their bodies below the shoulders. Grabbing, holding, and tripping are not allowed.

Countless collisions occur within this cyclone of speedy roller skaters, making falling just part of the game. Each bout seems straight out of a comic book. To protect themselves from the frequent spills, the skaters wear helmets, elbow pads, wrist guards, knee pads, and mouth guards.

At a recent Sunday night practice, Donna Gall, a.k.a. Bettie Blackeyes, sat on a pillow and watched from the sidelines. Her curly hair was tied up in a twisted bandana, and she wore a black sweatshirt. She had two lip piercings, bright red fingernail polish, and a minor injury that had forced her to sit out practice that night.

''I'm really bummin'!" said Gall, 29. ''I want to be out there kickin' some butt."

Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com.

The first exhibition contest of the Providence Roller Derby league begins tomorrow at 4 p.m. at the Bank of America Skating Center in Providence’s Kennedy Plaza. Admission is $5. The rain date is May 8. For more information, visit www.providencerollerderby.com.

The public is invited to skate with Providence Roller Derby skaters before their practices, the first and third Sundays of the month, at Silver City Skateland in Taunton from 8 to 10:30 p.m. Must be 18 or older. For more information visit www.silvercityskateland.com.