Best First Day & Hogtied by Children (What is Busking?)

Today, let us talk about busking:

What is busking?
According to Merriam Webster:

A person who entertains in a public space for "donations" [quotations added for ironical effect]

A bit too clinical, but it gets the point across.
I prefer this...

According to Dictionary.com:

1. To make money by singing, dancing, acting, etc in public places in the hopes of "donations"
2. To sell articles/obscene ballads, perform music, or improvise in a theatre queue in the hopes of "donations"
3.  Buscare (Italian): to procure, get, gain; Buscar (Spanish): to look for, to seek
4.  To "cruise as a pirate"

So we perform in the hopes of donations.
According to this definition, we possibly started in theatre queues while people were waiting for their tickets or for the house to open.
Performers would entertain and hope for patronage.
My personal favorite is to cruise as a pirate. This may be the origin of working on cruise lines, entertaining as a profession on ships.

The biggest things these definitions have in common:

1. In Public 
2.  Performance
3. Hope
4. "Donations"

But what is busking really?

I didn't really know until I performed.

Try it!

Public

So what do we mean by public?

Well...public.

It can be literally anywhere.

I have seen performers in almost any setting.
Now, for it to be legal, certain restrictions should be observed.
For example, one of my friends invited me to come with him to New York, spend a day with him on the subway, asking for donations while we perform scenes from contemporary plays for the waiting audience.
This sounded like a lot of fun...

(Excuse me! Ladies and Gentlemen! May I have your attention? Please!) 

Until I rode a subway and realized that that was inappropriate as fuck.
People on subways just want to get home. Or to work.
They are unphased by panhandlers and solicitors.
And what is more, it is illegal to do on public transit.

Now, that being said, you can do it in places of public transit and meeting, like this train station and net a tidy sum if you are particular about what you perform.

(We will come back to this video in just a second)

Performance

What type of performance should busking be?

If you believe the dictionaries, it almost always comes down to music.

But it could be...

Whatever this guy is doing. Zyle? Can you help me out?

Weight sharing

A quartet (with an mother-flipping accordion!)

Circus

Unicycling

Traditional dance

Point being. 

It can be anything.

Anything that you desire your street performance to be.

Busking is flexible enough to cover pretty much all of it.

Hope

I leave this one to people far better equipped than I.

"Donations"

I dislike this word.

Mostly because donations

The act of giving to a charity, especially a sum of money

It equates performance with charity
PERFORMANCE IS NOT CHARITY.
Therefore, why would you donate to one?
PERFORMANCE IS A JOB. IT IS A CAREER.
Plenty of people make wildly successful careers off their performance and their art.

Amanda Palmer survives on people giving to her on a monthly basis.
Check out her Patreon here.

Or Beyonce?
Quick price search of her tickets is wow!
$114-2700
at the time of this article.
Do you consider that a donation to the Beyonce charity?
Some people would argue hers is a religious experience, so the case could be made, but I do not consider it charity.
Beyonce has worked and hustled hard and found overwhelming success.
So no. Not charity.
And not donations.

Patronage

Patronage is 

support given by a patron

What is a patron?

someone who gives support to an institution, individual, or artist.

It doesn't have to be in arts.
The sciences have patrons all of the time.
They often thank them for their kind donations.
And that is fine.
Some people don't have the dislike of the word that I do.
But, I prefer patronage.
The financial support of persons who appreciate what artists do and wish to see them succeed at this crazy little thing called art.

That is the lifeblood of busking.

Patronage.

This is what lets people make careers out of it.

And it all starts with the hat.

Or guitar box.
Those also seem to be super common.

Point being, there is some way to receive patronage.

And the art is what is given back.

And often a thank you.

There is often something intangible about art. 

It is ephemeral, hard to pin down, difficult to figure out.

It is easiest when something tangible exchanges hands. 

A CD, a painting, a sculpture, a sketch.

When these pass to people, they are able to give immediately.

Oh, the CD is five quid? Sure, I'll take two, give one away as a gift.

It becomes a simple, monetary transaction.

I give you goods, you give me money.

But, busking and performance is harder because it is performative.

No goods exchange hands.

So it becomes a little bit scary when your busker looks like this:

See! There is the chalice! Go drop in the dollar bill so he can pay rent this month.

And there is no goods that can exchange hands at the end of the performance (like a CD)

Yeah...

So it becomes just a little bit thornier.

Point being, it is a scary prospect to stop and watch a busker perform.

It can be scarier to donate because it is such a new and wondrous thing.

• This person is asking for money simply for performing?
• She isn't donating to a good cause?
• She isn't starving?
• She isn't telling me about how her mom is in the hospital and if only she could get on the bus?
• What is this remarkable event?

Performance.

We're poor as dirt, but we have dignity.

Well...some of us do.

Point being, I promised I would bring it up and I will.

There is this video.

Meet Joshua Bell.

Playing a Stradivarius. 

In DC Metro.

The Argument

1. He is one of the preeminent musicians of our generation
2. performing six Bach pieces over 45 minutes
3. The equivalent of what people could expect to pay hundreds in a concert hall
4. He performed for FREE 
5. Only 7 people stopped to listen
6. 2 donations of a dollar

THE UNCULTURED SWINE.

I refute this.

Amanda Palmer in her Art of Asking says look at the relationship differently, and from a busking scenario you have to.

Joshua Bell, with all due respect, has illustrated in one act, what I learned from a single performance of busking.

I imagine he learned it too.

What I learned from busking.

You have to earn your audience.

So I am from a classical acting background. 

Which is a bit of an institution. 

The audience, like cattle, are corraled into a seated posture, facing the stage. The lights are dimmed and they are forced to stare at the only illuminated part of the stage. The actors are presented. And we beg the audience not to use cell phones as it may distract from the art. It is a little...prepared. A little...full of rigor...rigor-ful? 

Looks like this:

Now, this is not every theatre, but for the sake of time, let us say that it is.
Classic performance models will almost always adhere to this rigid structure.

Now, busking is a public performance model.
So crowds can come at you from almost any angle.
This can be purely physical (it rarely is)

More likely it will include an emotional aspect (look how happy everyone is on their way to work)

It can even be openly hostile (GET A REAL JOB!)

These can be extreme examples.
But, if you are willing to take a little eyebrow raises, a few heckles, a few shouts you can really command an audience.
Either through silence (mime) or through presence (dance) or through good old fashioned soundscape (barker).
If you have a routine or something remarkable, something people are willing to watch or find genuinely joyful you can turn the tide of the physical/emotional landscape to one of wonder and/or compassion.

If you are telling a story, people may even route for you.

That sounds nice.
But, more commonly you will have to deal with this:

The backs of heads.

Because...

Your relationship is only temporary

As good as you may be, as good as the performance is, you are performing in a public place.

That means that people will come and see you perform.

They will enjoy it for however long they have time.

And then they leave.

This is one of the harder ones to deal with.

The rejection.

Except it isn't. 

Because people do not have time to stay does not mean that they don't have time for you.

And it does not mean that you have to pull them back in.

It isn't a commentary on your performance or your self-worth if people leave.

That is just the nature of the beast.

When you have an audience, keep the audience

Meaning, unless you have a remarkable act, in between the sets is where it gets dangerous for audience attendance. 

Particularly for my performance, which we will get to in just a moment.

See, people's time and money is valuable.

It should be treated as such and

I believe performers do honor that value.

However, when you are setting up, moving between acts, or otherwise crunched for time:

Audience attention wanes.

And it wanes fast. 

So after the dancers would end their fabulous performance and the sound system was getting broken down and I was setting up to go on, people would leave.

That big, healthy audience we had built would disperse. 

I didn't take it personally, but suddenly I realized I would be playing to this:

This scared me.

To no end. 

Because, I have only ever had audiences come see me.

I have never had to drudge up an audience.

New skill set!

This is where Joshua Bell and myself fall flat on our faces:

We have never had to create our own audience. Therefore, we have none of those skills in our artistic toolbox at the ready.

What I did on my first day busking

I did what anybody in my position would do.
I started barking.
I think I did a literal "Hear ye, hear ye" I kind of blacked out for a minute there.
I asked everyone to applaud for the wonderful dancers and then wait a moment while I steeled myself for a presentation of what I called

FIRST DAY.

Why did I call it that?
Because it was my first day.
And I was terrified.
I knew of only one other scenario that was like that.
School.

Doesn't matter what school you go to.
Doesn't matter what age.
First days are awkward.
They are about making friends and making them fast.
So you are willing to do anything to try anything.
So that is what I did. And I decided to perform it.

Give yourself permission to play

Really I needed that more than anything.
I needed time and space to play.
Essentially, permission to fuck up.
Which I did. A lot of.
I entered the playing space and there was a single child sitting in the front row.
I waved.
He waved.
He smiled.
I smiled.
I waved.
He waved.
He smiled.
I smiled.
We did this for a full minute.
Eventually I moved a box that was six sizes bigger than me, and invited him into the playing space.
Him and one or two other children.
They all hopped onto the box.
I had no idea my plan to make friends would go so well!

And then they turned to me.
They were confused.
Nobody had ever done this before.
I had them in the playing space.
But, we weren't friends yet.
Because we weren't playing.

I initiated some mime, but they weren't having it, they thought it was weird.
I asked what they wanted to do.

• They said sit down.
• Go back to their seats.
• Grow up.

This broke my heart.

So I encouraged them to do it.

And as each one left, I gave out a scream like the mortally wounded.

My friends were leaving!

They were amused. Amused and terrified.

They decided to help me down off of my box.

I proved too afraid.

Then, the one most anxious to grow up, the most disillusioned with my performance told me I needed to get over my obsession with this box. 

He literally pried me off of it and stuck me to a wall.

So I was stuck to a wall as he was king of the box.

The others didn't dare to challenge his authority. 

He chased me away from the box when I tried to approach, screaming like a feral tiger as I cowered against the wall.

They tried pulling me away from the wall and after that, I was stuck to the wall.

The King rolled up his sleeves and shouted I shouldn't be so attached to things.

Eventually they tied me to a telephone pole. Literally with my tie.

And then I was rescued by a girl passing by, who brought me back to the box.

And the whole thing repeated over.

That is when I learned

If you can capture the imagination of the children, you've got an audience.

They were a wonderfully attentive audience.

Clever, insightful, ready to keep playing, keep performing.

They were a lot of fun.

It broke my heart to call an end to it all.
To say we had to move on to the next act.

I think they were a little crestfallen too.

There was no big climax.

Nothing to tell us we were done.

I felt like a huge letdown.

But, we had played.

We had had fun.

We were friends.

So that was my first day.

And my first piece. 

Called First Day.

It wasn't a raucous success.

But, it wasn't a failure either.

And the moment that stuck with me was after.

A girl came up to me and asked when I was performing next.

She said she had watched her brother have so much fun and wanted to see me perform again so she could get a turn.

I had a fan.

If you perform truthfully and well, you've got a recurring audience.

And that touched me more than words can say.

For the best book on busking, asking, and the art of, check out Amanda Palmer's

The Art of Asking!

Available wherever they sell books and stuff.

Critical Response (Why Everyone Hates Reviews...Fuck 'em)

Today, let us discuss reviews.
Reviews tend to be something of a lost art in the theatre.
Too often they tell us too little or too much about extraneous information that has nothing to do with the play.

Peter Brook did it much better

I didn't like is as much as when I was in it

The acting was okay

Are useless fucking statements in reviews. They tell the audience nothing and give the creative artists no serviceable material to work with for testimonials.

And that is all a review serves:

1. Giving the audience an accurate representation of a four-dimensional art piece
2. Giving the creatives testimonials with which to self-promote

There are arguments for other uses: 

• written record of theatre

I cannot think of any others.

Feel free to correct me, but if that is all, those three purposes, then these are unacceptable:

The different kinds of reviews that I have met in theatre:

The Summarizer

The summary is pretty much what it sounds like: they summate.

The show gets characterized in six to eight sentences. 

Something like:

The play began with the lights going down. I did not expect that as the lights were already dim. One of the characters entered and was very funny. Another character entered and they were funny too. I wasn't sure what it was about, but then something happened (that was the bit of plot that drives the play forward) and we all knew where it was headed from there. They continued on this way until it built to a final crescendo (I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but there are tears). It was deeply moving and surprisingly heartfelt. Come see Theatre Blah perform XXX at their [performance space] for the run of their show!

-Everybody

This tells us nothing about the production.
It tells your audience nothing pertinent or useful and gives the actors maybe three words that we as actors can use.

The Know-it-all

 We all know this person.
They know everything. Literally everything.
Usually they include all of this information in the review like so:

I've read the book the play is based upon. I've read the book the play is based upon in the original language. I have translated my own very literal version of the book and adapted it for the stage and for some reason nobody ever picked it up and damn it if I don't mention it in the article. But, this article isn't about me (yes it is). So let's talk about the book [sic]. It was originally published in 1x99 and received critical failure/praise in its time. It was widely circulated for reasons and included merit because reasons. 

How does this information apply to the play?
It really has nothing to do with the play or the situation.
They may be able to work in a conclusion relating it all back to the production, but that is the thing: the play is not the book.
Nobody cares how much research you have done outside of the context of the show they are going to see.
And if knowing as much as the reviewer knows made them miserable, why the fuck would you want to know it?

The "Feel-Good"

 This one I really hate. They "liked" everything. There wasn't a single thing they didn't "like."

The acting? Liked it.
The design? Liked it.
The script? Liked it.
The end? Loved it!
Would recommend? YES!
4 out of five stars (witty comment about why the fifth star is coming) Fifth star is waiting on my comp for when I come see it a second time! Great work! Really liked it!

How does this apply to the play?
It doesn't.
It is a careful and close reading of the reviewer and all of the things that they liked about the production.
It is essentially masturbation in front of a reading audience and why they should go see the play with this funny, wonderful person who really "likes" everything and please be my friend, please be my friend.

How to write a Review

So which is best?
None of these, certainly.
They each have their merits and their detractions.
I would suggest an amalgamation of them all:

• Start with some background about the play. Just give enough information for the audience to feel reasonably well-informed on the subject. It can be some of the tired and stretched out sluice: 

Titus Andronicus, one of Shakespeare's lesser known tragi-comedies unites the two elements into a bloody farce that is rarely staged when compared to his other tragedies: Hamlet, Lear, and Macbeth, but has a sharp, biting wit when it comes to bloodshed that is rarely seen except in the work of Martin Mcdonagh

We get a decent background, a sense of period, some information, and even a little contemporary theatre history, which we will go over later when we talk about context

• Provide some goddamn context for the piece

Usually I end with this one when reviewing. It can be the hardest thing to get right. Theatre has a long, illustrious, and usually infamous, history. Talking a little about it isn't grand standing, it is informing the audience, which is, you know, the point of journalism.

Marat/Sade was written by Peter Weiss in the style of Theatre of Cruelty originated by Antonin Artaud, a French theatre thinker of the 20th century who believed audiences could be infected with an idea, similar to plague, like an infection of the mind. Peter Brook, preeminent British director was the last to stage the play in English in the mid century, pushing his actors to simulate true insanity, which Weiss called a spectacular failure. This production attempted to stage it in the original German as an omage to Weiss's complaints against the Brook production.

There it is, all the theatre information an audience could ever fricking want.
However, it directly relates to the production at hand.
They are responding to the history of the piece and their production falls in line with the history.
You are either responding to history or against it.
Having an opinion is artistic, so express it and make sure the reviewer is sharing that with the audience.

• Include links

If you are working in a digital media. Include bloody links. They aren't hard, they match up with most print formats (underlining) and they are just freaking helpful for someone who isn't as well versed in the subject as you are. Nobody wants to google fifty key words. Just do five minutes of research and check your sources.

 Lastly

• Talk about every aspect of the prodution

This can be really hard if you don't know the people involved, but really, everything you see and experience as a reviewer is important. You are baring witness for a potential future audience. If there is an orgy and you were involved, please share that. That is important for some audience members. What you did in that orgy is not as important as the experience it left you with. Was it classy or trashy? Fun for flash? Moving or fascist? Inquiring minds need to know. I need to know if I can bring gradma to the orgy play and whether or not she will like it. The strobe lights are important for epileptics and color-conscious casting is important for racists. Being blind to or glossing over the importance or hyper focusing on the black Abe Lincoln does a disservice to the entirety of the production.

My decision on whether or not to go see a theatre piece should not be based on whether or not I want to see a black Mr. President Lincoln.

• What did it do?
•  Under what context?
• Did it work?
• How did it impact you, the reviewer? The audience?

I wish I could say that I haven't read reviews like this at every level, but I have. 

So let us aim for a better class of review.

One that does more than review and instead actually informs and excites us, the potential audience, to see some fucking theatre.

Making Donald Drumpf Again (One Blog Post at a Time)

Today let us discuss rhetoric.
Oratory.
Performance.
Something which in today's world is sorely ignored, much to our detriment.
Here is the best manifesto that I have ever heard on the power of words:

''

This is from an episode called War Crimes of the rightly beloved West Wing starring Martin Sheen.
In it he makes one of the most remarkable speeches.
For the lazy:

Then what is your problem?

Hackery!This guy was a hack!
He had a captive audience!
And the way I know that is that I tried to tunnel out of there several times. He had an audience and he didn't know what to do with it.

You want him to sing "Volare?"

Couldn't have hurt.
Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music.
They have rhythm,and pitch, and timbre, and volume.
These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us, and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't.
Do you see?All hacks, off the stage!
Right now!That's a national security order.

And he sticks the landing.

Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music.They have rhythm,and pitch, and timbre, and volume.These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us, and lift us up in ways that literal meanings can't.

And there it is.
Words, like music, when performed for the sake of an audience are an invisible force that we can use to influence ourselves and others.

A cursory glance at the internet reveals countless scholarly journals on the effects of music therapy:
Follow this link and find articles in journals spanning decades of research into the field.
You can start to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

These are excerpts from abstracts from studies conducted in the last year alone:

"background music disturbs the reading process, has some small detrimental effects on memory, but has a positive impact on emotional reactions and improves achievements in sports."

Not exactly music you can dance to, but that alone is telling. 

Music affects focus with particular (mental?) activities i.e. reading and supports/encourages others (physical?) i.e. sports.

One study suggests that listening to preferred music choices may help reduce pain and anxiety in patients undergoing treatment for renal failure.

Patients undergoing an incredibly arduous treatment for renal failure: hemodialysis reportedly experienced an improvement in their lifestyle listening to music.

Music therapy acts mainly through emotional and psycho-physiological pathways. It includes a series of techniques that can respond to targeted therapeutic objectives. Some studies have shown that music therapy reduces anxiety, alleviates periods of depression and aggressive behaviour and thus significantly improves mood, communication and autonomy of patients.

And this abstract I just didn't omit anything it is so good. 

This is an abstract about the treatment of children with music.

The conclusion that they drew was that music has the potential to improve not only psychological, but physical responses.

The aim of this study was to investigate the physiological responses of long-term hospitalized children when exposed to live music.Twenty-one paediatric patients at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital,London, between 3 months and 14 years of age, took part in the study. They were all long-term patients with cardiac and/or respiratory problems. They received music sessions for about 30 minutes, according to the child's state, during which a musician sang and played guitar. The children's physiological responses were measured with a pulse oximeter and their oxygen saturation level as well as their heart rate recorded before and after the music session. The analysis of the data showed that during the music sessions, the children's heart rate did not change significantly. However, when their oxygen saturation level was examined, a different picture emerged. In fact, the percentage of oxygen present in the blood increased significantly by the end of the music session.This suggests that music has an effect on the state of paediatric patients,potentially improving their physiological and psychological well-being.

Music is something that we do not fully understand, but is a powerful force that has a firm root in the medical community.
Now, what does this have to do with politics?
Well, given that this article started with West Wing, kind of everything.

You see, in it, President Bartlet creates a synonym between music (that powerful force we discussed) and words spoken for the sake of performance.
This is the most important time in history because media saturates all of our lives.

Average user in the US spends 5.6 hours online or connected to the digital sphere.

Facebook saturation increases every day.
According to this chart 1,550,000,000 users are on Facebook as of six months ago.
If the trend continues of 50-100 million per month growth, we hit 2 billion.
That is 2,000,000,000 users.
(Most of those are spam).

The point is, it is very easy to access an audience.
Again, how does this relate to politics?
If you saw this coming you are a god damn mind reader.

That is right.
Donald Drumpf.
Why?
Rhetoric.

Rhetoric used to be taught in schools.
No more.
It went out with Probability and Statistics and Free Play, I suppose.

But, what is rhetoric?
I googled it.
Rhetoric is the effective means by which to communicate an idea, but, and this here is important, persuade a listening/reading audience.

So here we have the world.

Saturated by Social Media

Where there is a total lack of education of anything that could be useful to a population.
For those who want some really amazing views on education check out Sir Ken Robinson's TedTalk or my earlier post.
The argument essentially goes:

1. Education (as we know it) is an institution to produce worker bees for the industrial revolution
2. Education (as we know it) has not been changed in the last 100 years since its inception
3. Education (as we know it) is rooted only in the trades/disciplines that will help worker bees

• math
• science
• english
• humanities

This is the state of the world (or at least one picture of it)
Humanity, constantly communicating, with little formal education in things like recognizing persuasive arguments.
And we get moments like this:

It cannot be plainer.
He argues and his audience reacts violently.
In fact, here is another video by the eminent Rachel Maddow where she systematically breaks down Drumpf's rhetoric and how he is using it to incite violence.

Donald Drumpf is not only a character, he is an orator.
Taking a look at the inherent message that he sends is one of hate and violence.
That cannot be questioned.
But, it is the people at his rallies who are listening.
And they are acting out.
And he abdicates responsibility.

What he is doing, if you listen closely, if you really listen is a war cry.
It sounds like a beating drum.
It is a call to arms.
He is militarizing the American public to a call to action of Hitlerian proportions.
And yes, I know I just succumbed to Godwin's Law, which states: 

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"

But, I am not the only person making the comparison:
In fact, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan said:
AND I FUCKING QUOTE THIS

“They might be rehabilitating that fellow with the mustache back there in Germany, because I saw…what Donald Trump said about preserving America and making America great again to Hitler in Germany preserving Germany and making Germany great again and free again and not beholden to these Communists on one side, politically who were trying to destroy their land and their freedom, and the Jewish capitalists on the other, who were ripping off the nation through the banking system.”

THAT FELLOW WITH THE MUSTACHE BACK THERE IN GERMANY!
I can't even.
When you are endorsed by this guy:

The commentary writes itself.

But, the point I was making is this:
Donald Drumpf has a powerful message of hate.
Powerful because he does have followers, rabid even, for attention in the spotlight.
How does he do this?
The sound of his rhetoric is a call to arms, to attack the other guy.

But, it has got to be countermanded with a message of powerful love and peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you our sitting president:


Point for point it is unreal to me that Drumpf is allowed his seat in politics.
He has wormed his way to all but assuring the presidential nomination and being a single race away from the same office as President Barack Obama.
That is...unconscionable to say the least.

Now, many people are asking what can we do?
What can we possibly do?
This may be the subject of a longer post, but here it is:

In the face of overwhelming violence, as in the case with school shootings, the best thing is for the majority of the public to ignore it.
Why?
How terrible!
In fact, we get studies like this:

Recent shootings at schools around the country have resulted in widespread fear and panic among both students and parents, prompting a myriad of responses to make schools safer. Yet, empirical data suggest that despite the recent shootings, schools remain extremely safe places for children, and school violence is lower today than it was several years ago. The present research focuses on the construction of school shootings as a moral panic, with examinations of the roles played by the media, the public, and politicians in using isolated incidents (albeit heinous offenses) to support their interests. The interactions between these groups and the resultant punitive actions directed toward juveniles are discussed.

Schools are safer than we are led to believe by the media.
The whole country is in a mass panic, when in fact, albeit the crimes are heinous, they are rarer than they were.
It is a smoke screen.
A narrative perpetuated by politicians to push their own agenda (yes, even democrats).
I won't say ignore the narrative because that is not helpful.
But, be aware that what is reported may not be all that is happening.

Donald Drumpf is a bigoted parrot, regurgitating whatever comes to him in the moment.
That is probably not all that he is doing.
That is probably not all that the Republican party is doing.
 Don't ignore his dangerous rhetoric because it is inciting violence.
But, please, don't rise to his challenge.

Nuclear escalation only raised the threat of nuclear war.
It wasn't until we started nuclear disarmament that we could tear down the walls.

For those that are interested in the art of rhetoric, check out this link from the art of (wo)manliness.