How'd you get started???

[Humanoid Gone Mad]

I've been doing Living statue shows for about 7 years and watching shows for well over 14 years. Some of the first shows I ever saw when I was about 9 or 10 years old were performed by people that I have now performed along side and are good friends of mine.

In himdsight street performance was quite a logical step to take but at the time it all just sort of fell on me and I diddn't really realise I was a street performer until I had acturally been doing it a fare while. It happend at random one morning after having coffe with some friend who performed living statues and they were off to do a show and when I said I would come watch (as I had not seen their show before) They invited me to perform with them. 'well O.K what the hell!'.... I was just out of high school and subsiquently its the only 'job' that I have ever had.

And wow! that past 7 years have been quite a trip I've had a hell of a ride and it just keeps on going although I am in a bit of a spot at the moment as I have recognised that it is time for me to fully take the next step into the illusive area of 'Circle show' and honestly I'm a bit stuck as I make my sole income from Statueing on the street at the moment its a matter of breaking out of that to get out there and do the Circle show....

I have been fooling around with circle show stuff at a few festivals in Oz and also on the street.. Though discovered that silance is real tuff..! So now is the time to bring my voice into it!!

And Although I have complete faith in my self as a performer I'm still stuck to go out and I dont really have a good finally yet (which is holding me back from going out at the mo). Though I would like to say Thanks to Steven Ragatz.. You give really good incouraging advice! which inspired me to tell a bit of my story and also what the hell to .just get out there with the routines that I do have and get used to the beginning and middle of the show and maybe do the end when I've really got it together!

The other thing I wanted to ad to my rave is... so far I have only been performing in Australia, Indoneasia, Singapore and China but I am booked to perform at a number of festivals in Canada latter this year and have about a month when I'm not playing festivals between mid june and mid July and I'm wondering if any one can suggest some funky places to busk on the east coast during this time. I plan to take 2 shows over with me (the new circle show- which I hope to have half together by then and fully develop when I'm there and one of my interactive living statue shows) so I'm flexible in regard to the pitches I can use.

Any way if anyone can offer any comment or addvice on my above rave and touring in Canada that would be really cool.

and if you are interested in the shows that I do and what I've been up to the last seven years check out my site:

www.humanoidgonemad.com


Cheers ... Love <img src="graemlins/haha.gif" border="0" alt="[ha ha]" /> Laughter and more.

Toby.

[GlassHarper]

to: performers.net forums
from: glassharper@glassharper.com
filename: perfnet.txt
re: Author Topic -- How'd you get started???

Great thread!
My act is rather different from the ones I see you talking about.
I play a glass harmonica, 26 water-tuned goblets that form a
chromatically-tuned instrument spanning two octaves and a major
second.

I finished building the instrument, about 14 years ago, early one
Saturday morning. I figured out how to play "Twinkle, twinkle..."
on it, packed it up and the next morning took it to the Ithaca
(NY) Farm Market, where I proceeded to learn how to play it in
front of an audience.

I had played several "standard" instruments, so I figured that
simply playing music on this unique device was enough to get
folks to open their hearts and their wallets for me. In sleepy
Ithaca, NY, once a week during the summer, that was, indeed,
sufficient.

Several years later when I hit the road I was still doing the
same thing, albeit with a somewhat expanded repertoire. I got to
Key West and QUICKLY found out that playing music wasn't nearly
enough -- it turns out most people don't give a damn about the
music: they want to be ENTERTAINED. It also turns out that I had
too low an expectation for results. One of the Mallory Dock
performers asked me one night, "Have you had a $100 day yet?"

"No," I said, somewhat chagrined. Someone suggested I go to New
Orleans. I did. That raised the bar. Here if it's not jazz and
not ENTERTAINMENT, it's Nowhere, Man.

Its taken me eight years to learn how to entertain people and to
overcome my debilitating stage fright. But so far I've been able
to keep up my resolve never again to have to punch a time clock!

Tips:
Laughter is the lubricant that greases the wallet for easy
removal from the pocket. It took me a while to learn to trust my
gut and say what comes to mind in any situation without killing
the moment by over analyzing it and worrying about whether or not
I might offend someone. Sure, its gotten me in trouble a few
times, but its just an audience, after all, and if they leave in
a huff you can always start over.

Audience participation is essential. I'll get a kid to teach the "trick" of making the glasses sing. "You now know how to bug your
favorite bar tender!" I'll say. "....whoops!, went right over her
head I fear!" or, alternatively, if she laughs at the joke, I
look straight at the father and say, "I've got to tell you, sir,
that USUALLY goes over their heads!"

Recognize that there are two different people up there
performing. There is your sacred self and there is your
performance persona (or personae if you are so inclined).

My persona is the down-at-the heels former professor who lectures
on the physics, history and repertoire of glass music. The
persona is close enough to my real self that I have to be careful
to keep them separate -- one of the N.O. buskers recently took me
to task for over acting as I explained (privately) to him the
principles of glass music. Tough. That's the way I am. He didn't
leave me a tip.

Size of audience doesn't really matter to me. I'd far rather get
tips from 100% of an audience of five than 5% of an audience of
100. But then, my act is a close-up act: "Look at the surface of
the water in that glass as she makes it ring folks, you can see a
picture of the tone right there on the....excuse me, madam, (to
one of the people skulking at the back of the audience) I'm a
vegetarian, you can come in close, I won't bite!"

Listen! Steven Ragatz said it best (along with EVERY guest on the
Bravo Channel's Actor's Studio Interviews...highly recommended
for ANYONE interested in the craft of theater) "you will have to
watch, listen, and react."

But the best advice I can think of is DO IT! You may be able to
learn from a book (Patty Campbell's now out-of-print-but-
available-thru-libraries book "Passing the Hat, Street
Performance in America [1980]," was a major inspiration for me).
You may be able to learn from classes. But the BEST teacher is a
real audience with all its changing quirks, its hecklers, its
drunks, its arrogant twits, and its friendly souls who will
fondly remember your show for the rest of their lives! The only
thing you have to fear is the crazies hanging out just down the
block with guns in their pockets. But then there was one of those
at Ford's Theater, and HE wasn't after a performer!

Best Regards,

PETER BENNETT
website: www.glassharper.com | email: glassharper@glassharper.com
1000 Bourbon St., #290, New Orleans, LA 70116 504-481-4987

[willie the clown]

my first street performance was in naw lins in 80,I was playing mandolin with a friend on the square.the local police found my friends buck knife and hauled him off to jail for concealed weapons,which left me to make money for bail.needless to say,he was there for a while.sorry man.he eventually was released.the next time we went unarmed and made some bread to feed our heads,had some fun,and went to bed.oh those ragtag daze of youth!

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I don't know if i've even started yet!P.S.Ooops! <img src="graemlins/jester.gif" border="0" alt="[jester]" />

[le pire]

I had to get over my fear of doing a show in an "uncontrolled environment" -- I'm a classically trained actor. It happened one day when I was flat broke in Paris after I met this swedish girl with expensive tastes...

"du yor mi gallen" (badly spelled) she would say.... &gt;&gt;sigh&lt;&lt;

I set my fuel can on fire in my first show and people put money into my hat because they pitied me.


e t i e n n e

[Pokie-Poke]

Thanks All, I can now say I told you so [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

I think the problem is she is seting up my props and can't juggle. so doing a bit with the props is going to be hard. but she has an idea for an origanal bit!!! we will see.

Triona has herd this but for the rest of you, my first street show was a magic show, me and 2 frends of mine were going to do a show in the park( All I did at the time was close up "pick a card" stuff, table hopping yes street no) we spent most of the day aurguing over what to do then had to find a table. by the time we got to the park it was maby 8:30 pm and just starting to get dark!! (did I mention it was central park in NYC)
I was about 13 yrs old. [img]rolleyes.gif[/img] I learnd to juggle and 2 yrs latter <img src="graemlins/jester.gif" border="0" alt="[jester]" />

[Pyromancer]

My question is: did I get started yet? I have been performing for a year or six now. But still feel like a newbie every now and them. It just comes to where I am and who I'm looking at. [img]smile.gif[/img] There's still so much to learn. I will probably won't have act that is 'finished', it's an ongoing "process" - where did I read that before on this board?.
I did many shows around Europe and the Netherlands in particular, this summer I go to Halifax and a couple of other Canadian festivals and hope to visit the US as well. It feels like the start of a new period again, or it may simply be the outcome of "the process".
Beauty you say eh? Beauty is not on the surface, it's in the character. Mine is a slightly messy one and more looking like an escaped caveman than a cassanova, but I see enough twinkling eyes in the audience to keep me going. My stage character is bouncing from nice and seductive to rather demonic, but people like it that way. As long as you don't treat the audience as an enemy it's all fine.
Yes, I did scare people away in the past and sometimes still do. I remember a renegade show that I compared a couple of years ago. With the arrogant assumption that I was going to 'make it' that night, I basically ended up verbally fighting with the audience, having exhausting discussions with hacklers rather then either putting them down or ignoring them when you can't do so.
It was an exhausting, terrible experience, finding myself crying backstage between acts but refusing to give up the show - which I didn't after all. As performers, we all have to go flat on our faces every now and then, it's part of "the process", it shapes your character and makes you stronger. You have to be able to make a fool out of yourself sometimes to be succesfull.
The biggest lesson I learned from this, is that you should perform for fun. I always did, but it's far too easy for your ego to fool you. If you think you are better than you actually are, it will come back at you without mercy. No need to say, that if your ego tells you you're less than you actually are, it doesn't work out either.
Don't let the size of the crowds judge you too much... It doesn't make much difference. Place and time are important factors that determine the size of your crowd. That doesn't mean you aren't one yourself, too. For me, it is a good feeling to see my crowds grow bigger over the years. But don't expect yourself to gather a big crowd ever, you're ego may be playing with you again.
And moneywise: ofcourse, a bigger crowd is more likely to draw a bigger hat, but also leaves much space for people to walk away. A smaller audience gives people a more personal experience, they're more likely to give and likely to give more then.
If you feel like you should go out there: do it. You will have good times and bad times. Like in real life. But for me personally, it's very rewarding to look at the ongoing "process" of development, being my own boss, employer, tutor and pupil at the same time. There's still a lot more to learn, so I won't fire myself yet. (sic)

[ 05-14-2002: Message edited by: Pyromancer ]</p>