Sideshow performers Lazarus Z. Hellgate and Pinkie Pell created videos of themselves taking part in shocking acts of pain endurance and eating things that tested the boundaries of edibility and sanity. The whole point, Hellgate says, was to thrill people and maybe turn their stomachs.
If you go
What: River City Rumpus sideshow celebration featuring Subterranean Cirqus, Cutthroat Freakshow & Thunder Snow Cone’s Strip Down Throw Down Tour and Tinderbox’s Big Bad Circus Sideshow Road Show When: 9 p.m.-2 a.m. tonight, June 25 Where: The Honest Pint, 35 Patten Parkway Admission: $15 Phone: 423-468-4192 Website: www.facebook.com/events/878310645549835/
Eric Odditorium bills himself as “The World’s Most Daring Sword Swallower.” He will appear in the River City Rumpus as a member of Cut Throat Freak Show.
Scarlett Storm, right, is a comedian and burlesque dancer with Cut Throat Freak Show and Thunder Snow Cone. Smurfasaur SG, left, is an aerialist and burlesque dancer with Thunder Snow Cone.A few years later, he and Pell – whose nickname, The Princess of Pain, pretty much says it all – brought their show to the stage as The Scenic City Sideshow, a troupe of entertainers who shared their knack for pushing themselves, and their audience, to the limit.
“We would get onstage and find something extremely funny, especially running out an audience member because we grossed them out so bad,” Hellgate says. “But there comes a time when you realize that running people out of the building isn’t a viable source of entertainment.
“You have to entertain people. Just because something is funny to you doesn’t mean it’s funny to everybody else.”
Ten years later, Hellgate and Pell stand at the center of a burgeoning community of sideshow entertainers in Chattanooga as the founders of The Subterranean Cirqus, a new group whose aim is to thrill without necessarily causing onlookers to flee.
“Nowadays, I definitely want to keep everyone in the building,” he says. “[With Subterranean Cirqus,] we wanted to get more serious with it. I always had a grander vision of doing something big, but some of the original people we worked with were more interested in the shock value of it all and keeping it underground.”
Tonight, June 25, he and Pell will host the River City Rumpus at The Honest Pint. The event is being billed as “The Biggest Circus Sideshow Celebration the Scenic City Has Ever Seen.”
The rumpus will feature performances by Subterranean Cirqus and a pair of touring sideshow ensembles: New York-based Cutthroat Freakshow and Thunder Snow Cone and Kentucky-based Tinderbox Circus Sideshow.
Among the acts audiences can expect are stand-up comedy, “breakdance sword swallowing,” glass eating, burlesque and aerial dancers and “dangerous juggling.” The show will feature additional guest performances by The Chattanooga Fire Cabaret, tribal fusion dancer Lacey Jo and a CD release performance by blues musician Lon Eldridge.
“There is entirely too much entertainment that’s going on from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” Hellgate says. “It’s an absurd amount of performers and things happening. There are so many moving parts.”
But there’s also a lot to celebrate, he says. When he and Pell started out a decade ago, there was no scene, he says, and they felt compelled to stay below the radar or risk being run out of town.
“It took us about 10 years to show everybody that we weren’t eating babies onstage,” he laughs.
And now?
“If we can take something that everyone was afraid of and show them it’s not as bad as they think, we can play anywhere,” he says.
“Over the last 10 years, we’ve proved that.”
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.