A night of dangerous beauty and carnal power: Little Miss Nasty’s empowering, sweat-drenched spectacle blurred the line between high art and pure seduction.
The last time Little Miss Nasty performed in Raleigh, NC, back in 2018, a group of protesters attempted to shut down the show over controversial content. No such protest occurred this time when Little Miss Nasty and Mimi Barks lit up Chapel of Bones with high-intensity, sexually charged music and choreography that left the audience aroused and desperate for more.
With a drum set at the center and a lone riser on the front edge of the stage, Mimi Barks strutted onto the sparse stage in a long black coat and her fiery orange hair flowing onto her shoulders, partially hiding her face. So striking and intense, all attention became fixated on Mimi like matter unable to escape a black hole’s horizon. Mesmerizing and frightening, Mimi paced the stage like an MMA fighter ready to fight, and commanded the room like it was her job. Mimi’s drummer, Brandon Davis, matched Mimi’s power and intensity throughout the set, pounding the drums so hard that he lifted out of his seat and hit them with full-body downward momentum. No ordinary drummer could keep up with Mimi Barks, and Brandon delivered an insanely hard-hitting, masterful performance.
Early in the set, Mimi performed her latest single, “Dreamstate of Hell.” As she took her coat off and crouched on the riser with a large fan underneath, Mimi became the dark twin of Leeloo from The Fifth Element movie. Beautiful and dangerous, alluring and deadly, Mimi’s tattooed body and pseudo-tactical gear clothing projected an authority that would not be denied. Singing with a searing scream, Mimi’s full body and strength went into every word, every note, every time. “Suicide” came mid-set, matching the point where Mimi attempted to incite the mostly stationary audience to move. When words failed to motivate the audience, Mimi physically laid hands on the front row audience members and tried shoving them into movement. When Mimi’s patience ended, she parted the audience to create a huge pit, jumped off stage, and proceeded to get the mosh pit going herself.
By the time she performed “Wormgirl,” the second-to-last song on the setlist, the audience had surrounded a full mosh pit and was full-on rowdy. Mimi crowd surfed and closed the set with “Big Ass Chains” as the energy in the room became explosively unstable. Mimi Barks achieved her goal of full chaos and participation before her set ended. Incredibly intense, sonically and visually, Mimi Barks delivered a searing set that lifted a passive audience to feral participants for the headliner about to take the stage.
Little Miss Nasty began their set with a several-minute-long intense hype video played on a lone video screen hung behind an aerial frame. When the dancers entered the stage for the first act, the audience was still energized from Mimi Barks and erupted into loud applause. Silhouetted by the bright video screen and no front lights, the dancers teased and entranced the audience into giving their full attention before launching into the first dance. Gina Katon, founder and frontwoman for the troupe, welcomed the audience to the show with a sultry, yet menacing sneer, as if enticing prey to move further into the trap.Performing on the aerial frame required strength and endurance, both of which every dancer possessed with more than enough to spare. Only stopping for a few moments between each performance, every dancer displayed the strength of an athlete, the flexibility and grace of a genre-crossing dancer, and the confidence of a professional performer who knew how to execute precisely and powerfully. Dancing to industrial, metal, and similar high-energy music, each performance showcased different dancers using inventive costumes, props, and gymnastic poses to make each performance unique and engaging. The setlist included original songs such as “Black as Night” and “Bad Girls Romance,” in addition to the use of music by Nine Inch Nails and other artists for each performance.
Sexy, sultry, and theatrical, Little Miss Nasty’s femmecore performance style felt raw, carnal, and empowering. Women and men in the audience alike found themselves ensnared in Little Miss Nasty’s trap, pulling the audience ever closer to the stage to feed off the energy being projected from the small Chapel of Bones stage. Never showing any signs of weakness or fatigue for the entire performance, the high intensity burlesque eventually took its toll on the dancers, each of whom were exhausted and drenched with sweat as they took their final bow and exited the stage.
The DeadDollz Tour 2026 continues until May 23, ending in Las Vegas.
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