Taking it to the street

While watching a video about spray painting techniques the other day, I realized that the artist was working on the street somewhere in Asia and that doing artwork on the street has elements of theater.  Wanting to know more about this aspect of art, I turned to Google search.  However, a search on 'street art', yields graffiti (tagging).  Zeroing in on the term 'street performer', I go closer but still not quite there.

But I did find an interesting article, "5 Crazy Street Performers (Who Happened to be Geniuses)," at Cracked.com.  The 5 performers are shown below, but please be sure to read the article -- it's well-written and a hoot.  Here's a sample of the writing, this part about Moondog:

A lot of street performers start off with a hard luck story, and Thomas Louis Hardin, or Moondog, was no exception. He was blinded by dynamite at age 16 ... aaaaand that's where his hard luck ended. Because despite performing with made-up instruments and making his living on sidewalks, Moondog was apparently a really influential musician. And also a little bit of a genius.

These videos of the performers were found on YouTube.

The first is Charlie Barnett, a contemporary of Richard Prior and Eddie Murphy, and mentor of Dave Chappelle.  Here he's performing in New York's Washington Square Park.  (Alert: rough language.)
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Then there's Moondog, who had Benny Goodman testify on the quality of his musicianship and performed with Julie Andrews.
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The story of Guy Laliberte -- accordian player, stilt-walker, and fire-eater -- who originated Cirque du Soleil is, well, inspiring.  Here Barbara Walters interviews him.  (Note:  ABC is exerting its copyright claim, don't be alarmed.)
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Here's a visual report on what happened when a world-class violinist, Joshua Bell, played at a metro stop at rush hour as an experiment.  (Looks like the video went viral.)
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Then there's the guy with flaming whips, Adam Winrich. 
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Give a cheer for YouTube.

-- Marge