Step into Coney Island on a summer day and you’ll hear it — screams from the Cyclone, music blasting from boardwalk speakers. Walk down Surf Avenue and you’ll see a different kind of spectacle: Sideshows by the Seashore. Inside, you’ll see performers twirling fire or hammering nails into themselves.
For many performers, the show is more than entertainment — it’s a powerful expression of identity and self-empowerment.
That’s the world Aaron Smith explores in his new book, “Natural Born! Circus, Sideshow and the Art of Being Human.” The book highlights “the misunderstood performers in the entertainment industry” within the sideshow scene, with its beating heart in Coney Island, the longtime home of America’s last permanent ten-in-one sideshow.
“I always tell people, Coney’s not just where the sideshow survived. It’s where it evolved,” Smith told Brooklyn Paper. “There’s a hierarchy in circus life, and at Coney Island, disabled performers — ‘naturals,’ as they call themselves — sit at the very top.”
Smith would know. Before becoming a journalist, he spent a year in the circus himself, selling cotton candy for Ringling Brothers and helping raise the big top for the Big Apple Circus. Years later, the pandemic allowed him to return to that world, this time with a notepad in hand.
While researching sideshows, he noticed an organization that “offered a membership discount to people who were ‘natural-born.’”
“I found that they were referring to disabled sideshow performers. I was surprised to learn that there are people still doing this today,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to write a book about them and I’m going to do it right now.”
He then spent four years interviewing 20 natural-born sideshow performers across the country, many with strong ties to the storied stages of Coney Island.
Among them is Mat Fraser, a prominent modern sideshow performer born with thalidomide-induced phocomelia, a condition that shortened his arms and left him without thumbs. He performed for years at Coney Island before launching a television career with roles in “American Horror Story.”
Then there’s Nati Amos, a New York-based medical technician born with amniotic band syndrome. Her act includes spinning flaming staffs and lying on beds of nails while cinderblocks are smashed across her torso. Smith devotes an entire chapter to her story, titled “The Patchwork Girl.”
While these acts are dangerous and painful, Smith said the performers emphasize that they are 100% voluntary.
“I would always ask people if they’re being exploited — they all said it was 100% voluntary,” he said. “In the past, there has been exploitation of disabled people in circuses and sideshows. These performers have total ownership of the act.”
In its current form, Coney Island’s sideshow scene dates back to the 1980s, when carnival showman John Bradshaw helped revive it. But its traditions are more than 100 years old, and Sideshows by the Seashore continues to draw crowds each summer.
“Coney Island is the only stationary sideshow there year after year,” Smith said. “You can go in there, buy a ticket and it’s a constantly revolving show.”
He believes “Natural Born!” is both a written record of natural-born performers’ lives and an invitation for audiences to learn more.
“If someone reads this book and then goes to Coney Island, I want them to be open-minded about going to the sideshow,” he said. “It’s not about gawking at disabled people. Because all of the performers have to be able to do something, whether it’s swallowing swords or breathing fire. They’re doing something most people can’t do.”
