what is a "busker" and are you one?

[Caisiy]

I have been working the Canadian festivals this summer
and come to find out that Canadians use the word "busker"
to define all street theater, street musicians, walk buy
jugglers, street performers, and any thing else on the
street.
I have never ( or have never intended to) referred to myself
as a "busker". The work comes out of your mouth yucky it
makes your face screw up and it just sounds like beggar. I
have tried and had others try to say it with a smile you just
can't.
I am posting this to start a conversation and find out what
others think.
MY definition of "busker" :some one who goes out into the
public with no plan of how (show, plot) but with the intention
to make money.
MY definition of "street performer":
A person who goes out into public with the intentions of
doing a show (beginning, middle, end ie.Plot). To give
people some thing they could never have seen at any other
time and in the end have entertained them and (hopefully)
get money.
I have been given many reasons as to why the work
"busker" is used. I still don't approve and would like to
know if there is a way that "we" can make it go away. It has
not always existed, we can replace it with nice things,
words that make your face smile when you say them.
Just an idea.......

[Peter Voice]

A curious posting really. There is some discussion on the origins of the term "busking" on another forum at http://www.performers.net/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000026.html
If I had to formally define myself, I'd use something like "Freelance Public Performance Artist", street performing is what I like to do and busking is one of the most important skills that I've learned.
It is , as I see it, people freely giving me what they think my work is worth. Honest and sweet. It allows me to pay the bills and experiment to learn what people like. Along the way, it's also has taken me around the world about 7 times.
You should be more proud of your work and the money people give you, instead of worrying about the word.
Seems somewhere, somehow, something has given you a bad impression. The word "busker" always brings a smile to my face. All professions have losers and frauds (bankers, plumbers, bondtraders, and motor mechanics to name a few), there are beggars posing as buskers but if you knew why and how I started, you'd realise how blurred the line can be. The person who looked hopeless you saw last year might develop the act you watch with awe next year.
Busking is not begging. It is taking your work into the public domain to test it and try to make a living out of it. For me, if you can proudly claim the term, it means you have some skill, courage and a sense of independence.
Perhaps you can change your mind and start to educate those around you. Your misconception most likely came from them.

[martin ewen]

Busking in my opinion refers specifically to a commercial practice wherein appreciation is rewarded to a performer by his/her/ their audience after the event.
A complete busker by this definition would be someone whos income directly related to the generosity of their audiences.
(With this in mind I would hazard that in Nth america there are more busking festivals than there are actual buskers.)
Street performer, Street artist, producer la specticale or for the less pretentious ‘spiritual symbolist’.
These tags refer to the content rather than the transaction.
For me that bias towards the transaction in the definition of public performance is a dissadvantage.
However international festivals do add to the general acceptance of busking as a fabulous thing.
And good busking is a fabulous thing not least because it can overcome any prejudices given it and sustain itself via its own grateful goodwill.
That said its been my experience as someone who’s earnt around 2/3rds of their income being a ‘busker’ that in the status stakes it doesn’t do you any favours when you meet your girlfriends parents.

[worldwidese]

Buskers and the word "busker" have been around for centuries. To me, it is quite a romantic concept to think of yourself as carrying on an old tradition.

If we didn't have so much gear, we would play it to the hilt, and arrive on scene just like in Shakespeare or Ben Jonson's day, with a fife and drum and tambourine and banner, and everything tied up in a huge sack, which we would dump on the ground, and then proceed to pull our props out. What an easdy way to gather a crowd!
Kelly

[BFlat]

I started a thread in this forum quite some time ago (http://www.performers.net/ubb/Forum10/HTML/000046.html)

While some people like the term, I personally don't. I'm not a busker, I don't consider myself as one and I never will. But that's just me.

[Rex Boyd]

The English performers tend to make the same distinction between busker and street performer. Or at least they definitely used to when I first came over here in 1988.

I believe that the word busker caught on in North America because of the Halifax Buskerfest using the name which then influenced a number of other festivals.

Rex

[martin ewen]

Busking means never having to say,
" No really..Its OK..I've got an arts grant."

[danielc]

Having just finished a festival in Winnipeg, I relooked over the program and it classified us as buskers.

I don't think that term really rolls off the tongue well. I think the least they could call us is street performers.. It's more to the point and concise.

Busker sounds like something you say when you're coughing hysterically.

[Rich Potter]

I have more or less stopped calling myself a busker for practical reasons.

Whenever I meet a non-North American English speaker and mention I'm a busker, they say, "Oh, really? What do you play?" Apparently the assumption is that I'm a musician. I first picked up the term "Busker" from the 1977 (?) book about the art, "Passing the Hat" which was about the Renaissance of street performing in the USA. (Robert Nelson, Michael Davis and Will Soto, among others, are in the book)

Additionally, most people from the United States other than buskers have no clue what the term "busker" means, and often don't have a concept of a circle show, other than, "does that mean you stand on street corners and juggle?"

As a result, I remain rather confused, and so as to not spread that confusion around, I refer to myself as a "Street Entertainer" ("performer" doesn't say enough, in my opinion....anyone can perform; not everyone can connect with an audience)

My $.02
--Rich

.

[Pokie-Poke]

I AM A BUSKER!!!!
I have a show that I have (in one form or another) worked on for better than 10 years. I have gone to school for "Real Theater" I would hate to see it go away as it is a romantic word that represents a timeless fredom that sets us apart from mear performers. How wrong can you be... an ugly word? If I must stop being a busker and stoop to performer or worst still entertainer I may as well go back to my day job (wait this is my day job)

Anyway explaning busker is not that bad after all I end up telling them what a jongleur is