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Tuesday, 19 August 2008 02:48
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 Circus Amok No Freak Show
By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
The classic American side show relied on exploiting racial and anatomical differences of its performers for the edification and entertainment of a white audience; while also demarcating the socially sanctioned line between ‘normal’ and ‘freak.’
In the mid-1980s, Jennifer Miller experienced first hand the impact of performing in a sideshow on Coney Island and reveals, she has mixed feelings about the years she spent there. Sideshows, she says, have “a horrible history of marginalizing and freak-a-fying; and a racist history. [But the Coney Island Sideshow] cost a dollar to get in and people went who would never go to the theater, who would never see a post-modern exposé on gender. It was a great part for me. I would turn the thing upside down and go into a feminist rant and juggle knifes. But; there was always a banner on the outside that said ‘Bearded Lady’—and that I hated; that [I] was part of the freak show.”
 Still, she concedes, she has a preference for female pronouns. “I’m she, I’m comfortable with she. Pronoun: I can choose; we all know what’s comfortable. Gender: god knows! I don’t know what that means anymore! I’m sort of pondering my own internal sense of self in relation to my presentation. Although I am a woman with a beard, I don't really identify as trans. I see that I transgress traditional gender signifiers; but I think the relationship of my beard to my gender identity is minimal.”
Instead, Miller argues, “I [identify] as a director a performer, a teacher. Why [would] I prioritize age over gender, over race, over class, over the thing that I do, over the color that I like, over the food that I eat?”
The New York native was a performer years before she grew her beard. In high school, she acted in school plays, and learned juggling and clowning. During the era of late 70’s feminism, she moved out of her parents’ home at 17 and soon became involved in New York’s downtown dance scene.
At the Coney Island SideShow and several other circus companies, Miller performed as a a bearded woman, juggler, and fire eater. In 1989, she founded Circus Amok, a performance troupe that played experimental theaters in Manhattan for several years before taking to the parks and community gardens of the five burroughs.
“It’s a one ring, no animal, political, queerly situated, free circus extravaganza!” Miller proclaims, stringing the words together without a breath, like the talented circus barker she is. “Each year we have a different social justice, political theme and then the gender is always nicely mixed up all over the place and broadly framed. This year, we’re talking about predatory lending and the mortgage crisis and the racist history of credit exploitation; and we’re also talking about the particle accelerator.”
Circus Amok is comprised of a six person “blasting brass band,” and seven ring-performers who utilize puppetry, rope walking, juggling and stilt dancing to convey their complex messages.
Heralded for her role as director, Miller has been the focus of several books and films, including Tami Gold’s documentary, Juggling Gender; and has received numerous awards including the Obie, Bessie, and the Ethyl Eichelberger Award. She has taught at UCLA, Cal Arts, Scripps College and NYU, and is currently teaching at the Pratt Institute.
Women with beards fascinate society, Miller suggests, “because they…straddle gender boundaries; so it’s mysterious and confounding. People want to feel strong enough to be who they are… to not be compromised by secrets they feel they have to keep. They wish for the [relief] of not having to live up to images they can’t live up to [but] that we’re all stuck with.”
People may think that women who proudly display beards are immune to concerns about their appearance, but Miller insists, “Bearded women [have] no fewer problems. I might have come to terms with my beard, but coming to terms with weight, or coming to terms with aging? They’re still there.”
Recognizing that bearded women share similar issues with the transgender community, Miller contends, “ Certainly in the externalized, in the interactive parts of our experiences, we share an immense amount. We [both] confuse our viewers, the people who we meet, our others. We confuse the people around us—unless we’re passing as one thing or another. Our effect on culture is [also] very similar…stirring up the culture around us and saying, ‘Women don’t look just like this and men don’t look just like that.’.
“Who wants to walk into a bathroom and hear women shriek?” Miller asks rhetorically, explaining another element of commonality with the trans community: a simple bodily function can be fraught with anxiety; especially when it means utilizing a public restroom. Although Miller admits she doesn’t feel entirely comfortable dong so, she frequently uses the men’s room.
“It’s not that I care that [women] get upset, I just don’t want to deal with their eruptions! It’s just easier; I pass in the men’s bathroom. But, if I’m in a comfortable place, where I’m known… like the Pratt, where I teach…I use the women’s bathroom. But, if I’m at the airport…I slip right into the men’s room. I’m just sort of interested in going to the bathroom.”
Circus Amok (circusamok.org) plans to begin a wider touring program in the next year or two. Miller insists they will remain committed first and foremost to New York neighborhoods and in the meantime, they will be performing at a different park every day during the month of September.
Circus Amok may be no freak show, but Miller suggests the old form still exists—in a different medium. “The talk show is a new incarnation [of] a classic American side show…[with the] half man, half woman…and the bearded lady.”
Tune in to Portland, Oregon’s KBOO radio, August 26th 6-6:30 pm PST as trans writer Jacob Anderson-Minshall (
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) joins Trannywreck Radio’s Rebecca Nay to co-host the pilot episode of their new radio show, Gender Blender, streaming live at KBOO.fm.
© 2008 Jacob Anderson-Minshall
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