Performing for a Living

   

     Busker: the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is practised all over the world and date back to antiquity. People engaging in this practice are called street performers or buskers.


     Performances are anything that people find entertaining. Performers may do acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions, escapology, dance, singing, fire skills, flea circus, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime, living statue, musical performances, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or reciting poetry or prose, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing and ventriloquism

     That is a lot of active entertainment. In August of 2018, we saw many of the above-mentioned skills performed at the Halifax waterfront.

     The Halifax Busker Festival has been presented for 32 years now and was very well-attended.  This year there were 13 performers and 12 of them did about 16-17 shows over the 6 days that it ran.  We attended along with our guests from P.E.I., Toni and Paul, and caught 5 acts.  Al returned on August 6 and watched 6 more.

 Mighty Mike was a "strongman act" who, among other things, blew up a hot water bottle until it exploded and juggled bowling balls (the size you use in 10-pin bowling).  He had won the People's Choice award in 2017.  This is voted upon by the general public from their computers or other devices.

Break City was a breakdancing troupe from Montreal.  We weren't overly impressed with their performance, but they ended up winning the People's Choice award this year.

  

     The Circus Firemen were brothers from Australia who had a very funny juggling and acrobatic act with lots of funny patter throughout.  They were one of our favourites.

     "Sara Twister" was a contortionist from Germany.  She was incredibly fit and flexible and her act included getting her whole body through a tennis racquet and shooting an arrow with her feet while balanced upside down on an elevated platform.

     Her Majesty's Secret Circus was a couple doing fairly standard circus acts (fire juggling, unicycle riding and other acrobatics) woven around a schtick of being secret agents.  They had a good running dialogue and engaged the audience well.

Incendia Motus (translation: fire acrobatics) was a trio of acrobats doing all manner of circus acts using burning hoops, batons and juggling sticks.  They also did fire breathing.  It was hot work on a hot day!

Sam Prest's act is described as a "Robot Circus Comedy Stunt" show and it was certainly all of these.  In a variation on sword swallowing, the above video shows Sam putting an inflated long balloon, approx. 36" in length, down his throat.  He performed the rest of his act with the balloon still in his stomach and it did not reappear by the end of the show.

     One of Bev's favourite performers was multi-instrumentalist Dave Johnson from Australia who played as a one-man band.  Lovely music. Even bought one of his CDs, The long instrument you see in the photo is a didgeridoo, a wind instrument that originated with the Australian aborigines and produces a droning sound..

     We enjoyed the Festival. The time spent honing their skills must be tremendous but I am sure that in the end they enjoy performing for others. Most major cities hold a Busker Festival each year. Watch for one near you.