Yesterday we got together with a juggler we met on Sunday in the French Quarter. He is a traveling street performer. He can juggle pins and fire and handle devil sticks and do this while balancing precariously on a balancing board thing, with witty banter to boot. He also does magic. He approached us on Sunday when we were out performing to see if we knew of any juggling clubs in the city. We don’t, but we met up with him to play around and are going to try and regularly meet to see if we can help establish a juggling club with locals who could carry it on after we leave, and after our new friend leaves in April.
Ever since we met up with him, I have been feeling like not only do we not have the skill set other performers have, but I, at least, do not really have a desire to learn the witty banter and the hat lines. It doesn’t feel natural to me and my personality. I’ve never considered myself very quick on my feet when it comes to saying clever things in conversation, nor good at making jokes. I have a love for performing, but express it by singing in choirs or musicals, or by singing solos at my parents’ church. I have a love for entertaining, but express it by being goofy for my sister until she laughs so hard she cries.
It’s no surprise to me, though, that street performance was going to be way outside my comfort zone. I knew that, but felt and still feel that the challenge of it is totally worthwhile. But the worth, for me, comes from brightening a person’s day a bit, surprising them with a spontaneous and whimsical story, and the stories I am given in return, like the drunk man who stopped to have a conversation with us and told us we were the greatest. And yes, it also comes from someone appreciatively giving us $1 or, even better, $5 after a good story. But even if we don’t get a tip, I’m still glad we told that story and that those people stopped and listened to it.
The problem then, for me, is that for us to really be making a livable income with our busking, we would have to change our performance so much. We would have to make up or borrow all the clever things to say, both to get people to stop in the first place and to get them to give us money, and we would have to really build a show. Maybe I would feel more like doing this if I felt like we had the skill set to back it up, but we don’t know a lot of juggling tricks or have a real big finish. I feel like I’ve just gotten somewhat decent at three ball juggling, and adding tricks to that is doable, but realistically would take several more months to nail down well enough to include them in a show.
Even if we did have all the skills, I’m still not sure I would want to do that kind of show. It’s entertaining, yes, but not particularly original. Maybe that’s where all this is stemming from. I want to do something original. Our stories feel original. No one else out there is doing it, plus they are different every time we tell one. And maybe there is a way to make more money and still do what I feel we're best at, but I don't know what that is yet.
In addition to musing about what exactly it is we’re doing, as we are so wont to do, we’ve also been up to some fun activities. Game nights, dumpster diving, picnics, radio plays, parades...and here are some pictures from a few of those activities:
Picnic with Aaron and Amalie--I'm stealing their baby!
Krewe de Vieux, fake dollars being handed out
Krewe de Vieux #2, those plastic cups were also handed out
Krewe de Vieux #3, band member
Ah, the parade loot! (and scary red eyes)
Brendan's parade bling
The inexhaustible game of Power Grid
3 comments:
Research has shown: Those things which people do exclusively for internal rewards such as fun, wonder, sensations of pride, pleasure at giving,general good feelings as a sense of accomplishment, joy at mastery, learning, etc. are those things they will come to value.
Those things we do for external rewards (money, sweets to eat, grades, other things like that) are degraded in our eyes by the receiving of external rewards and will tend not to be as valued.
In education classes we learn that the surest way to get kids to dislike an assignment is to offer them an external reward of grades, praise, privileges or treats.
We learn that to ask, "How does that make you feel?" at that moment when they were most engrossed in an assignment was the surest way to have a student like what he was doing.
Perhaps this is why people who write suddenly have blocks when they receive their first significant sum from writing a book.
Isn't valentine's day worth a blog? It's two days after and you haven't written anything. We need blog!
Yes, we need in this society to get money to live. Unfortunately, that is all we need. We can not value what we do by how much good it does, but by how much money we are given to do it.
So, you must play to your strengths. But some strengths are more valued in some venues than others. I don't know what makes a money-making busker (I have too much sales resistance for that), but it seems that a lot of chutzpah and a flamboyant, self-contained attention-getting act gets more cash.
Story-telling seems more difficult in a street milieu. Perhaps you guys could e-mail Ken Lonnquist and David Stokes for how to make story-telling succesful performance art.
P.S. I do worry about Mexico, but it seems the problems are more toward west Texas and California. If you enter in East Texas and head south, you might avoid the problem areas. Hitchhikers are more vulnerable, but if you are poor enough, you won't be a target. Blog often, or write us personal e-mails, like "I am not kIdnapped yet".
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