Does living in Washington sometimes make you feel like you’re in the center of a political sideshow? Well, thanks to Atomic Doll Productions, this town gets a regular dose of the real thing.
After fruitful stints at Artisphere and AMP by Strathmore, the company brings its series Shocked & Amazed! to The Bier Baron this Saturday. Sponsored in part by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and named after historian James Taylor’s chronicle of variety exhibitions, the event is a great entry point for modern audiences who may have seen a burlesque show or two but are otherwise unfamiliar with the world of the sideshow.
“The sideshow is and always will be a fringe art form,” says Alexandra Doll, the promoter and organizer behind Atomic Doll. As she explains it, the traditional sideshow “was on the midway—on the way to the circus”—in other words, something you would see to prepare you for the main event.
Doll started promoting the series after The Red Palace closed, looking for an way to keep variety arts alive in the District. She also wanted to dispel certain misconceptions about this storied form of entertainment. “It’s not all just raunchy and crazy,” she says.
Not that Doll is against such suggestive craziness. Although Saturday’s show features burlesque bad-ass Velvetina Taylor, that world is only a part of the evening’s festivities.
Shocked & Amazed! is presented as a Ten-In-One, showcasing a variety of acts under one umbrella for a single price of admission. While this format was originally meant to be an ancillary event adjacent to a circus or carnival, Doll promotes what is traditionally an undercard program as the meaty main event.
And what an event! Other performers include Gigi Deluxe, an accomplished carnival archer who will fire arrows at Doll’s head on stage; and Kentucky-based punk rock darlings Tinderbox Circus Sideshow, one of the last traveling sideshow acts in the country.
After the black box environment of Artisphere and the unique performance space of AMP, the company will leverage the more intimate environment of the Bier Baron to present what Doll considers the best way to promote sideshows to modern audiences. She wants to “preserve the history while celebrating the future of the industry, whatever it may be.”
A fan as well as a promoter, Doll has a unique perspective on the state of this art form and how to keep it alive.
“I started out as a documentarian of the industry, so I viewed it from the outside in,” Doll says. But over the past decade, she has seen the old-fashioned sideshow reinvigorated with an innovative spirit.
“People need to work a lot harder to be entertaining to modern crowds. Why would you pay to see someone do something live that they could see on America’s Got Talent? Sideshow has long been branded the ‘look at me industry,’ but I think it’s more appropriate to say, especially in this modern age, ‘Why should I be looking at you?'”
Its title aside, Shocked & Amazed! relies on more than shock value and spectacle. Charisma and audience engagement are more crucial to its success. Doll focuses on the psychology of the form: how can you use spectacle to form a connection? By curating some of the best performers in the biz together under one “tent,” she intends to prove that, in the age of YouTube and SnapChat, it’s still a thrill to see these highly specialized talents live and in person.
Doll is confident that, in a town full of so many entertainment options and so little time, Shocked & Amazed offers something you can’t get just anywhere.
“I can’t even imagine something else rivaling what we’re going to be doing. Unless someone else is up the block being shot at with arrows by a contortionist or swallowing swords.”
Shocked & Amazed is Saturday, August 5 at 8 p.m. at The Bier Baron, 1523 22nd Street Northwest. $18-30. Buy tickets here.
Atomic Doll Presents: Shocked & Amazed! will be Saturday @ 8pm at The Bier Baron Tavern, 1523 22nd Street Northwest. Tickets are available here.
