Lawrence.com

When Slymenstra Hyman takes the Girly Freak Show stage, with 25-foot lightning bolts shooting from her outstretched fingers and 2 million volts of raw electricity surging through her body, she couldn't feel more at home.

"It's a pretty big rush," says the 35-year-old performance artist, phoning from a Toledo, Ohio-bound van. "It's an adrenaline rush. It's definitely an adventurer's dream world. But I've always pushed the limits my entire life, doing different adventure-y activities. It just courses through my body, I have no control."

Hyman, whose real name is Danielle Stampe, certainly seems in control onstage. Not only does she hold the world's record for human endurance of high voltage electricity, she's also listed in the Guinness Book for fire breathing (distance and duration), having shot a 38-foot flame out of her mouth for 1 minute and 42 seconds.

"I do circular breathing like a horn player," Stampe explains. "Then I blow the flame out in front of my face and onto it and onto it and onto it. It makes a sort of triple-tiered mushroom cloud looking thing."

Get your freak on

Currently, Stampe is using those talents � and others � on the road as mistress of ceremonies for her Girly Freak Show, a one-ring circus of classic sideshow art featuring a rotating cast of female contortionists, freaks, and other performers straight from the sunny side of Mars.

Stampe describes the hour-and-a-half Freak Show as "sort of a dinner-theater type of thing," but that barely scratches the surface of what's in store for audiences willing to brave the trip. For starters, there's Stampe's sidekick, extreme stunt man Zamora the Torture King, who's billed as the "token male guest star" for the evening.

"He's probably the world's best sideshow performer ever in history," Stampe enthuses. "He does so many different stunts. He licks hot-red pokers to walking across red-hot metal to what he's famous for � the human pincushion act. He does that better than anyone I've ever seen. He does this thing called internal yogic flossing where he swallows a piece of string and pulls it out of his stomach � you know, cuts into his stomach and pulls it out. Then the traditional stuff like bed-of-nails, eating glass (neon light tubes, wine glasses) laying on a bed of swords and breaking bricks on him. And he's the best fire-eater I've ever seen."

Then there's New York City performance artist Reina Terror, the only female brave enough to do the whole Freak Show tour.

"She does classical side show stuff � bed of nails, walking on glass," Stampe explains. "She does a really cute fire dance that we call her fiery passion dance."

The Girly Freak Show also features a fully operational Tesla coil, a half-woman/half-spider illusion, sword swallowing and kitschy burlesque waltzes with names like The Cannibal Stripper Hoochie Coochie Dance. Pure family entertainment, in other words.

Given Stampe's line of work, one would assume that injuries must be commonplace. They are.

"I injure myself all the time," Stampe says. "I'm Miss Klutz. I've caught my hair on fire from having too much hair spray. When I was performing at the Circus Royale, my headdress caught on fire and it was pinned down so hard, I couldn't pull it off. That was kind of scary. When I was working out the lighting stunt in the beginning, I got thrown 20 feet. I was almost electrocuted and my heart stopped. But I was fine. Luckily, I have clown insurance, so I'm covered when I'm doing stunts. Those are the types of things you have to go through, I guess."

Gwar you lonesome tonight?

Stampe was a metalsmith and woodworking major at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., when she started dating fellow student Dave Brockie, vocalist for an up-and-coming band called Gwar. Though the 17-year-old former high-school cheerleader was learning ballet and tap dance, she was recruited into her boyfriend's act when a dancer unexpectedly quit.

"The next thing I knew I was in the band," Stampe recalls. "It was nothing I ever aspired toward. It wasn't like, 'I gotta be in a band.' In fact, it was probably the exact opposite. Now I don't ever want to hear music again. But being in Gwar is kind of like being in the mafia: Once you're in the family, that's it. You got no choice!"

Gwar is one of music's strangest phenomenons, forefathers to insane clown posses like Slipknot, White Zombie and Orgy. Gwar lore claims that the group members are actually omnipotent galactic warriors, here to sexually enslave and/or slaughter all earthlings. Bandmates adopt aliases like Oderus Urungus and The Sexecutioner, while their stage show � featuring members cloaked in ghoulish latex masks and outfits, faux pagan rituals, gallons of fake blood and other monstrosities � helped establish a rabid underground following over the years. On any given night, Stampe, who was christened Slymenstra Hyman, might find herself onstage crucified on a cross, birthing an alien baby. Ever looking to expand Gwar's show, Stampe came up with a slew of fun new tricks.

"I started out doing fire torches, spinning them around the way gymnasts spin clubs," she says. "Then I started playing around with eating fire and breathing fire. Then I was over in Europe and met this old circus performer. She taught me 'Dragon's Breath,' where I get one really long, continuous blast. I ended up getting good at it. I've done probably 2,000 shows with Gwar doing fire."

Men are from Mars

In 1995, Stampe began to work on an act of her own, looking to get away from Gwar's uber-masculine performances. Her Girly Freak Show was the culmination of everything she'd done as a member of Gwar, with an ironically feminist twist.

"The whole theme of Girly Freak Show is to prove man's fear of woman � the theme in all my art," Stampe says laughing. "It's total girl-power. It shows all the different feminine images and icons."

The original Girly Freak Show debuted as a New York City performance-art show in 1996 and began regularly packing venues by offering something that was light years away from the average bar band. After a promoter friend caught a performance, Stampe and company were invited to tour with Lollapalooza during its fifth inception. With her profile increased considerably, Stampe began to be a known face within the tightly knit stunt industry. Soon she was fielding offers from world-famous acts, turning down a proposition to join Cirque du Soleil (an 8-year commitment was required). During this time, Hollywood stunt legend Mark Allen taught Stampe gun-spinning, knife-throwing, target bullwhipping and lasso art, all featured in the current Freak Show. Throughout it all, Stampe kept her stage name.

"I'm still Slymenstra Hyman in the Girly Freak Show," she explains. "But I'm showing the softer, more sensitive side of Slymenstra � the glamour puss. Everything's glittery, everything's pink and light blue, mixed with my Gwar stuff. It's really cute. It's almost like I'm getting paid to play dress-up. I don't use any blood in the show. I've done that for so long, that I didn't want to do it this time. All my costumes get dirty and my wigs get trashed."

Of course, would-be Susan Faludi's have questioned Stampe's role as a feminist icon, pointing out that the Slymenstra Hyman character could be considered offensive and derogatory toward women.

"In the past I've had people question me," says Stampe, who minored in women's studies at Virginia Commonwealth. "But I can usually shut them up because I know more feminist rhetoric than they do. I can pretty much shut down anybody."

Jerry rigged

One person who tried to shut Stampe down was smarmy TV host Jerry Springer, whose producers invited her back after an earlier appearance on Springer's show with Gwar.

"They asked me to be on for 'women in rock,'" Stampe recalls. "My boyfriend had just broken up with me and I'd just had knee surgery. So I show up and I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm gonna take my brace off and just wear boots. No one's gonna try to hit me or anything, right?' And the producer's like, 'Yeah, yeah.' So, I walk out there and this boyfriend that just broke up with me over the phone is sitting there. I'm like, 'What the (expletive)!' So I was kind of upset about that. Plus, there were no women in rock. There was only strippers, street prostitutes, porno stars and me."

The second Stampe sat down, she was attacked by a woman who she'd never met before, ostensibly staged by Springer's producers.

"All I could think about was my knee," Stampe says. "So I just stayed sitting down and let her punch me. I walked out and called my lawyer backstage and he told me to finish up the show. The producer promised me nothing would happen, so I went back out the same girl attacked me again. So I basically stood up and pummeled her. I mean REALLY pummeled her. When they edited the show together, they showed me walking out onstage, this girl coming up to me and me just pummeling her. They didn't show any of the precursor stuff, they made me look real bad."

Stampe sued "The Jerry Springer Show," which hastily settled out of court for a five-figure sum. Stampe won't be returning for future programs.

"I would never do another show like that, ever in my career," she insists. "I never really liked shows like that anyway. I think it's a half-assed way to fill up television time. It's rotting America from the inside-out. It's so white-trash and it's such a bad reflection on our country. Other people in Europe see that stuff and think that that's what Americans are like. It's disgusting, it's the underbelly of America � the grossest per capita there is."

For the kids

Stampe's not just tired of television, she's tired of music, too. Though she plans to keep doing occasional gigs with Gwar, she's clearly ready to move into other realms of the creative life.

"I'm totally sick of rock 'n' roll," she rants. "I'm so sick of the music industry and how you make 25 cents a record and the label gets the rest, working my ass into the ground constantly for other people to make money. You're just like, 'When do I get to make more money or live a little more comfortably?'"

For Stampe that time may be fast arriving. When not on the road with Gwar or the Freak Show, she's back home in Los Angeles where she owns and operates an interior design company that specializes in historic renovation. Boasting a permanent staff of 10, Stampe's firm recently renovated Albert Einstein's laboratory in Pasadena, turning it into a lavishly designed restaurant. Stampe's experience with renovation dates back to her Virginia college days, where she worked on Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and the Jefferson Hotel.

Given all she does, Stampe's parents must be proud, even if their daughter's professional name is Slymenstra Hyman.

"They're pretty supportive," she says. "There are moments when they're frustrated with how broke I am at times and how I don't have health insurance. They hate that. But now I'm a little bit away from Gwar and doing other things, getting more diverse and doing the circus thing. They like seeing that I can do something in front of children."