Most people learn early on in life that there are certain things you just don't put in your mouth -- unless you're one of the freaks who will eat glass, swallow swords and drink gasoline tomorrow night in Spaulding Auditorium at 8 and 11 p.m. Is it Hell Night already? No, it's just the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, straight from the boardwalk in Brooklyn.
What could make you sicker than driving a spike into your forehead? Watching someone else do it, perhaps. Tomorrow evening's shows promise grotesque feats that the squeamish might wish to avoid. On the other hand, College students habitually practice their own remarkable feats of ingestion, so they should feel right at home with Screwy Louie, Electra from Chernobyl, the Bellevue Boy and Rubber Girl.
Some of the bizarre acts one can expect to see are a woman who charms albino pythons; a man who lights up the darkened auditorium with two feet of neon tubing behind his ribcage; and an erotic fire dancer who bathes in fire and, after drinking gasoline, becomes a human torch. Virtually all of the acts are real: the freaks were once "normal" individuals who became obsessed with the carnival life and sought out ex-carnival performers to learn their extraordinary crafts.
The sideshow is rooted in centuries-old traditions of travelling carnivals and medicine shows, and appeals to the ever-popular fascination with the body's limits. Its resonance for modern audiences demonstrates that some contemporary issues are essentially timeless.
"It has so much to do with the conceptual underpinnings of various countercultures," said Norman Frisch, the new director of programming at the Hopkins Center. "You look at people with their nose, lips, chins or tongues pierced and ask, 'Why did you do that? What does it mean?' Why have these people chosen to set themselves apart physically?"
Michael Wilson, the Illustrated Man, is a sideshow "freak" whose body evokes questions about the spiritual significance of tattoos. Jennifer Wilson, the Bearded Lady juggles gender identities as well as machetes. Unlike the pitiable freaks in 19th century shows, these men and women are interested in reclaiming power from a society that would marginalize them.
"They're trying to reinvent the sideshow without the exploitation," Frisch explained. "Like Madonna or Sandra Bernhard, they maintain sensationalism but subvert it so they remain powerful [while seeming to be objectified]."
Although many of the performers spent years learning their crafts from retired carnies, their art also draws on the recent ideologies of performance art and the in-your-face proclamation of difference. Indeed, the intersection of the two genres seems to have revivified the all but defunct sideshow tradition.
Do the freaks ever step out of their performance personas? In "real life" they are visual artists, theater historians, urban anthropologists and community activists from New York who have carefully thought out their performances and the implications of their physical differences or unusual abilities.
They have also redeemed the old Coney Island boardwalk and amusement park from decay and demolition. A few years ago they convened to form Coney Island, USA, a non-profit organization that revamped the neglected site where they perform. Tomorrow night's shows are their first outside of New York.
A discussion with the cast will take place at 10 p.m. in the Hopkins Center faculty lounge. The two shows take place in Spaulding Auditorium at 8 and 11 p.m. and cost $10.50 for students.
At 4 p.m. Bearded Lady Jennifer Miller will be the guest at a presentation in the faculty lounge sponsored by the Hopkins Center Outreach Office, the Committee on Intellectual Life and DaGLO. The documentary film "Juggling Gender" about Miller's rise to prominence in downtown New York will be screened.
