The Busking Project - Documenting Street Performance Worldwide

I recently read Buskers: The On-the-Streets, In-the-Trains, Off-the-Grid Memoir of Two New York City Street Musicians by Heth and Jed, which came up with some fantastic quotes. Here’s the first paragraph of a chapter in which they describe their ascendancy to becoming one of Manhattan’s most successful busker groups: We became musical Bedouins, settling into [...]

“I don’t think there’s any separation between what I do and who I am.” — A fantastic quote by Johnny Sheppard about his role street performing in the New York Subways. This video comes from the “Playing for Pocket Change” series, and is a lovely look at the New York City subway performing elite. Playing [...]

The wonderful, award-winning movies that Mark Cersosimo has put on Vimeo (his employers, no less) take a good look at the subway musicians of New York. I’ve already sent him a message with the words “benchmark,” “hope,” and “thank you” in it. Apparently new episodes are beginning this month – watch this space! www.playingforpocketchange.com Erich [...]

Daydreams of filming El Gallo in Havana Cuba. Seventy-six-year-old Cuban street musician Miguel Del Morales, known as El Gallo (The Rooster), travels around Cuba with his guitar, making music in the homes of friends, in bars, and on street corners, in courtyards and stairwells. Share and Enjoy:

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The commentary is sometimes hilarious, sometimes annoying, but always dated. About the man with two dozen flags in his mouth: “I tell you, we ought to send him to Geneva, to do some ballyhooing for the League of Nations!” Share and Enjoy:

In Vienna we came across a British artist on the streets with an interesting story. He is walking from Spain to Russia, funding his journey from money he receives on the streets. The art he makes in each city is auctioned on his website and the money goes to a charity of the winners choice. [...]

Making a timelapse video isn’t that hard, normally. You set a camera on a tripod, turn it on, edit the settings, then leave it alone until it’s finished. This doesn’t work when you’re travelling on a train at 60km/h on a foggy day from polluted Beijing towards the Gobi Desert — shakes, filth, water and [...]

A video of a street performer in Paris doing things with his body that look so amazing you suspect CGI! Awesome! Share and Enjoy:

“A Documentary Series about Street Artists living on the fringe of survival” From their Vimeo Channel: Each artist’s story will provide an “insider’s” point of view on the logic of “how to get by” on the streets while exposing how a part of our society works through the eyes of the participants who perform on [...]

Apparently there are tons of street musicians that play on State Street every weekend in Madison, WI. Busking on State will be showcasing some of the “better” ones for your eyes and ears. Here are their current two — we hope to see more like this in the future. buskingonstate.tumblr.com Share and Enjoy:

La Blogotheque presents Local Natives | Who Knows Who Cares | A Take Away Show Images and edit by Nat Le Scouarnec Sound by JB Aubonnet & François Clos Mix by JB Aubonnet Production Management by Hedwige Hénain Produced by Chryde for la Blogotheque http://www.myspace.com/localnatives http://www.blogotheque.net http://www.watchyoursteps.net Share and Enjoy:

Have you ever wanted to see what it would look like if people actually organised themselves to try to make a large city beautiful? Mural Arts in Philadelphia is giving it a go. One dump truck at a time… (I’ve put credits next to the images below in case you want to use them) Pictures [...]

Here’s a fantastic video about Shantijaz, Istanbul’s premier didgeridoo, santur and daf drum trio. Okay, they’re probably the only didgeridoo, santur and daf drum trio. But check out their stuff. We spent last night interviewing Metehan and the other members of Light in Babylon, another great act in Istanbul (expect to see videos of them [...]

The Busking Project would love to speak to the people that were buskers and have since become famous and moved off the streets – Eddie Izzard, James Morrison, Leonard Cohen, and Eric Clapton to name a few. But Glen Hansard, made famous for his busking film Once (Academy Award and Grammy nomination),  is famous and still [...]

Thanks to April Denée for doing this — Busk! looks really promising. Here’s the details: —- BUSK! is a character-driven documentary that explores how an emerging cultural center like Charlotte, NC can – (and should!) – encourage street art and performance toward social, cultural, and economic growth. To accomplish this, the film will follow street [...]

The video is amazing. The project is quite simple: people are asked to submit black and white portraits to the website InsideOutProject.net. These are then turned into posters and sent back to them to be displayed in their communities. TED Prize Winner JR has been doing this in places ranging from Kenya to Palestine. The [...]

Mini portraits of a japanese contact Juggler Only subtitled in french for now Shot with a PMW EX-3 in Tokyo Edited by Christophe Deroo Color graded in Colors Sound Design by sebastien Eugène A Guerrilleros Production October 2008 Share and Enjoy:

Genie Love touring with the Pleasant Revolution at the First Bicycle Music Festival in Barcelona on the 10 of October 2010. After 7000 kilometers on Bike with their equipment through Europe and atmosphere they managed to create a amazing festival for the launch of the 10:10 campaign in Spain. Share and Enjoy:

These guys are really good. We will be hosting more content on the performers page, but you can hear their music on their myspace: Jesse Masterson, First Floor Gallery, Big Little City Music from Barcelona: well worth watching. Share and Enjoy: