Street performers are often incredible to watch since before they ever take their act to the street they’ve practiced an insane amount of time to make sure they get it right. Depending on what they do you may or may not be too impressed, but respect needs to be given to their level of devotion at the very least. Those that do it just for the performance and don’t keep a change jar or anything out are those that happen to like to perform for people, perhaps in the hopes that they’ll get noticed in some way for something that might one day make them famous. It’s happened before but the chances are so small that each one of them knows that they have to be the best at what they’re doing.
Such things as the Michael Jackson impersonators and anything having to do with dancing is something that has to be top notch and absolutely mesmerizing to get that much notice. The downside of street performances is that people will look at just about anything. They’ll watch almost anything, and thanks to the need to be distracted from their everyday lives they will stop and pay attention to just about anyone that has something to say, do, or perform. Some cities tend to have performers every few blocks that engage in some type of behavior that is able to gain the notice of the crowds.
A lot of these individuals know how to pander to a crowd and can get people on their side fairly simply by doing something that the crowd immediately likes and can get behind. Others find the need to do something so outlandish that a person can stand there wondering just how in the world they are performing the act with such poise. Remember what I said about practice? These folks aren’t just going out and doing this on a lark. They’ve put in the time and the effort to be good at something they enjoy doing and now want to share it with the world. It’d be interesting to know just how much a person can pull down per day while being a street performer.
The hours would no doubt be quite brutal since just to earn a decent wage you’d have to remain there for a good long while and hope and pray that the audience was feeling generous. Then there are moments when you would have to hope that the weather held out, otherwise your act could be completely ruined depending on what it is.
Then there’s the idea of whether or not people have seen your act a dozen different ways from a couple dozen different people. Street performers need to come up with something brand new or do something old in a way that people really have not seen before in order to really wow their audience and keep their attention. Even then it’s likely that they will only be able to do so for a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
It’s a tough gig, but a lot of people make it work.
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