Coney Island USA Sideshows by the Seashore
1208 Surf Ave.
Friday, August 8, $15, 10:00
www.coneyisland.com
In 1964, experimental filmmaker Jack Smith’s forty-three-minute Flaming Creatures was shown at the Gramercy Arts Theatre to underground acclaim and governmental obscenity charges. Jonas Mekas called it “the most luxurious outpouring of imagination, of imagery, of poetry, of movie artistry,” while Smith himself considered it “a comedy set in a haunted music studio.” (You can watch the crazy, most definitely NSFW film here or catch it at the Museum of the Moving Image on August 10 along with Barbara Rubin’s Christmas on Earth.) So it is more than appropriate that Dr. Lucky’s Surrealist Burlesque will be paying tribute to Smith and his film at Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore on August 8 with an evening of live performances by an impressive group of underground artists: Carmelita Tropicana, Dirty Martini, Jennifer Miller, Jason Mejias, Julie Atlas Muz, Peekaboo Pointe, Poison Eve, and Dr. Lucky himself. In previous years, Surreal Burlesque has adapted Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, the Dada Manifesto, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and Salvador Dali’s “Dream of Venus” as only it can. For this sixth annual presentation, Dr. Lucky has chosen another great subject, so expect the unexpected during what should be a wild and unpredictable event.