The Squidling Brothers bring sideshow back

"It was something I saw as part of a story," said the lovely sword-swallowing, contortionist clown Betty Bloomerz. Before meeting hula-hoop artist Rita Riggs and Jelly Boy of the Squidling Brothers, she said, that sideshow seemed to be something from a dream, thought of only in the back of one's mind but unreachable in reality. For many, the fantasy of the sideshow may still seem a long-ago destiny, lived out in faded photographs and "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" However, as the Carnivolution crew prepares for yet another season, and the life of the sideshow circus continues to thrive in the flesh and blood in the city, now in ways that surely would have stunned people like P.T Barnum.

In the digital age, where hundreds of years of death-defying stunts and oddities can be rendered to a single Google search, today's audience may not be as prone to shock and awe as people were in the 1800s. Today's sideshow performers feel the same way. "You imagine the sword swallower, you see a banner from a long time ago, and there's this guy dressed a certain way, just swallowing a sword. He's got a shield behind him with a whole bunch of other swords on it and he's just 'The Sword Swallower'… That's all pretty much old hat amongst the community of people who are doing these things," said Jelly Boy, who began Carnivolution with his brother, Matterz Squidling, in 2004. Now, the evolution of sideshow has created a fusion of classic acts with a modern twist, new aesthetics into historical tradition, and testing the barriers of impossibility.

Like numerous sideshow performers, Jelly Boy has been reinventing his stunts and adding to his repertoire of talents since he first took interest in sideshow ten years ago.

He was introduced to sideshow when he found himself working at Tower Records with William Roxborough "Red" Stuart, a reputed sword swallower. At the same time, Jelly Boy was organizing a Day of the Dead parade on South Street. After hiring Red Stuart and Great Nippulini, a pierced weight lifter, for the parade, Jelly Boy said that they enjoyed his presentation style and invited him to do a separate, smaller sideshow that they would call the Philadelphia Sideshow Revue. "They taught me a few of the classic acts and sent me spinning," said Jelly Boy. Since then, Jelly Boy's acts have continued to evolve, whether he's using Tesla coils and lightning rods to transform himself into a human circuit or swallowing a rifle.

Of course, pushing oneself can sometimes mean stretching beyond one's own perception of what is possible. "I did one act where I was hanging from flesh hooks and I swallowed a sword," said Jelly Boy. "So I had to figure out how to realign my body in a different way. I wasn't sure if it was possible or not. It was one of those things where I just wanted to do it..." Another performer, Mariana J. Plick, faced her own concerns when attempting a chest stand, an extreme contortionist stretching position, on a bed of nails.

Plick, who began learning flying trapeze at age 13, said her first sideshow performance was with Carnivolution, when she was hired by Betty Bloomerz and Jelly Boy to do her trapeze act. Since then, while continuing to do corporate acts and traditional circus shows, Mariana J. Plick became one of the creators of Phantasmagoria Circus Sideshow under the name Mariana Mystique, with Alejandro DuBois. Recently, she also wrote her own play, Cirque Skeletique, which is written in the style of a nouveau cirque that involves a narrative shared with the audience through physical movement. The play also incorporated a wide variety of talent, with various performers both from circus and sideshow backgrounds, including Betty Bloomerz, with whom she collaborated with for the show in New York.

As Mariana J. Plick became more enthralled with sideshow, she began combining her circus talents with deadlier acts. When she decided to do the chest stand stunt, she said that she had not heard of anyone every trying the act, and was concerned that the stunt could not be done. However, she chose to move forward with the attempt, using some comforting self-encouragement: "I thought about it and if the nails go through my skin and it's too much weight on my chest with the nails, it's not going to stab me. It'll just go through the skin and pierce the bone…" Her stunt was successful and free of pierced bones, and she continues to push herself to new levels. "I also do aerial contortion hanging by one ankle, while having someone throwing knives around me… I've never heard of anyone living to tell the tale," she said.

It's easy to try and convince oneself that these acts are an illusion, or that they're rigged to be less deadly. Even while watching the Circus Convergence show, I wanted to tell myself that "maybe the blades aren't so sharp" as Matterz Squidling climbed his machete ladder and leaped onto a pile of glass. Regardless of what you tell yourself, these acts are not magic and the dangers they face are very real.

Plick even recalled a moment when this reality hit her during an aerial performance at the Fountain Art Fair. "I was up there, and I didn't have any safety line, and I'm hanging by one hand 300 feet up in the air above this crowd of dancing people," she said. "And I had this moment…this overwhelming sensation of having your whole life in your one hand, and the lives of other people." She said that it was this level of self-reliance that makes one appreciate life. For Betty Bloomerz, part of learning her stunts meant quieting her own ego. "You forget how intimate your medium is…my medium is swords." Whether it's swallowing a blade on land or upside down on a trapeze, she said, "You have to come back into yourself and realize what your body is saying."

This unique relationship with one's anatomy is no less remarkable. While natural and "involuntary" reflexes pivotal in self-preservation for most, a sideshow performer must maintain a higher level of direction over the body. For Plick, she explained that aerialists and contortionist, as well as ballerinas or athletes, have to have a high pain tolerance. She said, "You just learn to transcend it as much as necessary. If it's not a shock to you… then you don't have to experience the pain as an alarming sensation."

"I think that fear is probably the first of the reflexes to get over," said Jelly Boy. He explained that while it's important to maintain a "healthy amount of fear," and prepare oneself for a worst case scenario, fear can also lead to panic, which can be detrimental. With sword swallowing, it can lead to choking to death. However, he said that it's simply a matter of remembering to remain calm. "It's the same thing as if you're on fire. Do you have the brain power to stop, drop, and roll, or are you going to run around like a lunatic?" he said. "It's all up in the brain. You have the ability to withstand great heat, great cold, and great pain. All types of things."

Of course, amidst of all this seriousness, this dark discussion of pain and threat of death, one can not forget the humor, the silliness, and even the glamour that is ingrained within these shows. This is especially true for Carnivolution, which blends an ongoing narrative into each show with mix of anatomical feats and other performance arts, from burlesque to ventriloquism. One of these artists, a gentleman who can always be seen in his top hat and overcoat, is Mr. Dead Guy.

Along with everyone's favorite dead baby, Baby Cheezwitz, Mr. Dead Guy has been working with the sideshow circus crew for years. "He's a complete part of Carnivolution," said Jelly Boy. However, Mr. Dead Guy, whose real name is Dave Deneen, said that the character was first constructed around 1988. The character started off as a Halloween costume, and as a personal challenge to create a realistic skull mask. "Whenever I watched a movie that had some kind of skeleton, the skull was too big for the rest of the body," said Deneen. Baby Cheezwitz, who Deneen molded after the dry infant preps from the Mutter Museum, was also born from onscreen inspiration, as a prop for an independent film. "There was this nightmare scene and a woman has to go check on her new born and sees this desiccated child with snakes crawling all over it," said Deneen.

Puppetry, along with its further extended history, has a bit of connection with circus. "Specifically there's Punch and Judy shows that were also feature in outdoor carnivals," said Deneen. Still, just as traditional trapeze did not originally coincide with sideshow, ventriloquism in sideshow is a bit new, as part of the "re-inventing of sideshow that's happening." Having always had an interest in sideshow and freak shows, some of Mr. Dead Guy's characters reflect the figures of old sideshow. For example, his one puppet, Icky the Pinhead wears traditional pinhead outfits. "The real Zip the pinhead, Barnum used to dress him up and exhibit him as a missing link or a What Is It?, whereas Schlitzy and a lot of other pinheads were in dresses," said Deneen. He also has another character named Stumpo the Great. "He's a mesmerist, so he can hypnotize you, but he's also a human torso… the size of an adult male with no arms and legs."

Another form of traditional performance art that has found its way into sideshow is burlesque, and though the two genres were essentially separate, Philly burlesque dancer Lil' Steph, explained that there was some crossover. "They did big, elaborate shows and traveled with the circus at one point," she said. "I remember reading in Lili St. Cyr's autobiography, she did a huge show with the circus later in her career." After the 1950's with the emergence of strip clubs and cooch dancers, the art of burlesque slipped further away. However, Lil' Steph said that since the late 90's, people have been striving to bring back the art of strip tease, with both classic performance acts and neo-burlesque.

"It's not just about taking your clothes off, it's about a journey," said Lil' Steph. "Even when I take off a glove, sometimes I can take a whole minute… You can make taking your glove off or pulling your stocking off an entire performance." Lil' Steph has been performing burlesque since 2006 and was selected to perform in Vegas' Burlesque Hall of Fame showcase four years later. Though she draws a lot of inspiration from traditional performances of the 1940s and 50s, she is happy to occasionally do something a little on the "weirder" side for the Squidling Brothers or Carnivolution, such as her "Albino Geek" performance. "Burlesque is 'to make fun of' so by definition it's in your face but kind of funny, too. That's kind of my character."

Whether it's fire breathing, burlesque dancing, or Mr. Dead Guy and his dead baby sidekick, the resurgence of these alternative arts have now combined to create a truly stunning performance in the modern age of sideshow. The next Carnivolution will be held on May 10, at the Tiberino Museum.

Betty Bloomerz, who is classically trained in various forms of traditional art from sculpting to drawing with graphite, described the art of sideshow as the ability to present her medium, while drawing a connection between her experience and the audience. It's the question of whether one is able to bring certain sensations into a viewer's awareness. After witnessing Circus Convergence, I can say first hand that there is a significant visceral experience in observing sideshow. Despite how much one has seen through images on a screen, it doesn't compare to watching a woman hammer a nail into her nasal cavity ten feet away, and experiencing the proximity of what Betty calls "playfulness in the realm of danger."