Levitating discreteness: The secret of street performers

Introduction

Street performers (‘SP’) are the people performing in public areas, for gratuities. SP can vary from acrobats, magicians, clowning, comedians, musical and etc. In this analysis, I examined the different procedures of attracting and maintain the audience in street performances, supporting Goffman’s argument of ‘appearance’ and ‘performance‘ in accordance to the expected standards as well as discussing Henrique’s 3 proliferations of street performances.

Methodology

This research is primarily based on ethnography tests, supported with informal interviews, images and videos. I have observed and collected qualitative data from 4 different street performers, within two days in Covent Garden, London. During these observations, various informal conversations occurred with performers. My research design was based on observing and writing field notes on their initial start-up of the performance, during the actual performance, and followed by an informal conversation with SPs after the show. This is because observing people can expose us to the tacit and implicit behavior of SP, in which interview or conversation alone wont be competent. In comprehending with ethical code of conduct, SP granted the permission for me to take qualitative data for his show. However, taking picture of audience’s face is prohibited and therefore in this study, there are no facial representations, aside from the SP’s.

Background to Setting

One of the most prominent tourist attraction in London is the SPs which is described as the ‘embodiment essence of London” (Ref). At the heart of the city, Covent Garden, is a world filled with beguiling magicians, comedians, musicians and stuntmen marking their own stages, blaring large sounds and showing off their skills. It is both a multi-culture, filled with old and young tourists, some as friends, some married and some with children. It is a world of continuous movement of people, most of it enthralled by the street performances.

Analysis

One of the unique factors of SP is the way they persuade the audience to watch their show. The aim is to “make the audience like (them)”. The following field notes is the reported informal conversationof the magician and the stuntman after their show.

There are different ways on… taking the attention of the audience. Involving everybody is essential… You know… You have to make them feel special; make them feel like you have invited them here to watch your show. The stuntman added on by saying “the trick is to make them (audience) like us”. Both nodded in consensus. We all do it differently… according to what we present in the stage. If I see someone liking the show, I call them over… You gotta call them over

Several aspect of this excerpt is important. Firstly, the sequence of the comments “taking the audience’s attention”, “making them feel special” and for “them to like us” shows that there is a preliminary knowledge of capturing the audience’s attention by all performers. Secondly, the nod of the magician when stuntman said that they have to make the audience like them shows agreement with another’s point of view. Thirdly, stuntman emphasized the importance of interaction and involving audience in the show by saying “gotta call them (audience) over”. Therefore, the generic way of capturing captive audience is to make them feel special, make them like the performers and interacting with them, in which the performers have preliminary knowledge off. However, the complexity of performers intriguing the audience differs, which will be discussed below.

Performers capture audience’s attention through different ways, in which is unique to every SP. The following vignette shows the way the stuntman intrigue his audience. Soon after the magician left the “stage”, he puts the boxes, speakers and the other props on the floor. He leaves it there, goes to his car and came back after 3 minutes with his long metal chains, which he did not use at all for his show. To begin the show, he market out the stage, in a trapezoid form with pink and green robes. Before doing so, he asked help from one of the audience to hold the other end of the robe so kids could play jump robe. By this time, some people were interested at his show. He then stood on top of the boxes so he could gain higher altitude then everyone else. He made loud noises with his whistle, as well as told the audience clap their hands and shout “wow”. By this time, there were more than 175 people surrounding him, forming a semi-circular shape, after which he started the show.

From the excerpt above, the stuntman did many things to capture the audience’s attention. Firstly, he took his props out, capturing some passerby’s attention to the show, and with that props intrigue children to play jump robe, in which the parents stood to watch the show as well. Secondly, he marked out his stage to indirectly inform audience that the show will take place in the trapezoid diameter. The trapezoid shape leaves passersby wondering on the kind of stunts to be performed in the unusual shape. Finally, he created noise from clapping hands, metal chains, blowing whistle and shouting onomatopoetic words like “vroom” to make other people, further in the distance wondering about the show. The stuntman therefore used a combination of interacting with the audience, marking out the trapezoid stage and making loud noises to capture captive audience group.

Besides the simple and complex way of capturing audience’s attention, the magician shows a deviant way of doing so. The following vignette and image will show this.

While placing his props on the floor and setting out his stage, the magician notices that a kid has gone to him to ask a picture with him. While taking the picture with certain props and the kid, the magician notices that few audience has gatheraround the stage area. He decides to ask the permission from the parents for the kid to join his show. He carried the kid, introduced him to the audience, gave him knifes and hat so that he was part of the show (image below). He performed an introductory magic trick, but acted as if it was the kid who did it. He made the kid pull out almost 5 meters long colorful ribbon from the hat. By this time, audience was enthralled and broke into an uproar, which intrigued more people.

Photograph 1: Beginning of the Magic Show
Photograph 1: Beginning of the Magic Show

From the vignette and the image above, the general preconception of making a commotion to enthrall audience is present; however, the way the magician does this is deviant from others. He saw an opportunity with the kid when he asked for a picture and used that opportunity by making the kid part of his show. By having the kid doing magic tricks, it entertains the audience, who made a lot of noises, and gathered more audience. Therefore, using children in a show was a deviant case from the generic capturing the audience through props and interaction with elder crowd. The second unique factor in SP is the implicit negotiation to maintain certain number of audience. The following vignette shows how the acrobat involves the audience into the show. After having a captive audience, the acrobat calls on 5 different males into the “stage”. All these 5 males came from different ethnic groups. As an icebreaker due to differences of nationality and culture, the acrobat makes them do a fashion show dance (shown by the video transcript below). After this, the acrobat asked help from the 5 males to tie him down as tight as possible, after which he will try to release himself, as part of his show. This enhances the legitimacy of the show. Unfortunately, before trying to release him, the metal chained that tied him down got released, which made the task easier for him. The audience was disappointed, the acrobat apologized for the inconvenience, but most of them just left. Even though on stage he was smiling and accepting the fact that not a lot of people gave in money, at the back stage he complained to his friend “Ahh…I just told him to do the chain”. Disappointments left along with his show.

Video 1: Fashion Show by audience, led by Street Performer. No conversation, only music and whistle.
Video 1: Fashion Show by audience, led by Street Performer. No conversation, only music and whistle.

There are several points that are important from the excerpt above. The first ‘simple’ implicit negotiation comes from calling 5 men from different ethnic groups to the stage to perform a fashion walk. The ‘complex’ negotiation occurs because other people in the audience would be intrigued to stay because of ‘cultural attractiveness’ as some cultures are considered attractive to other cultures (Shenkar, 2001). Thus, the likelihood of certain culture being attracted to one of the 5 men performing is higher than the SP performing alone. Finally, the complex implicit negotiation occurred when the 5 representatives tied down the performer to enhance the ‘legitimacy of the show’. The negotiation occurred where the audience would be intrigued to stay to watch the show because they were part of it. Therefore, these three implicit negotiations maintain the level of audience in the show. Nonetheless, due to one of the man’s inability to understand English, he did not ‘do the chain’ properly, which let the SP loose and making his performance easier. Even though involving multi-cultural audience is beneficial to enhance captive audience, mistakes are prominent which can be detrimental for the performance.

Discussion

Street performers have preliminary knowledge than just what meets the eye. Based on the analysis above, it can be related to Henrique’s link on applying rhetoric ethnographically. He believes the trinity means of persuasion are ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is believed that goers will only see SP for a while, thus personality and charisma is regarded as ‘an active practice’. Pathos is ‘devices for emotional appeal’ to the audience. Logos can be considered as the street performance’s instruction of the crowd, including the skill of the performer. Henrique argues that dominant Western approach emphasizes on ‘logos’ (Henrique. 2011). However, I argue that SP’s charisma and emotional appeal (ethos and pathos) will intrigue audience’s attention such as by involving audiences through making noises, shouting onomatopoetic words, joining the show, or even using a kid to attract audience. This persuades the audience to watch the show. Nonetheless, the skill (Logos) is the implicit negotiation that SP offers to maintain certain audience level facilitated by the credibility of the stunt through involving audience by tying SP down.

The above analysis can also be related to Goffman’s study of ‘Presentation of Self’. Goffman argues that individual “maintain standards of behavior which he does not personally believe in… because of a believe that audience present will punish deviations from standards”. This argument is supported in this study because in the acrobatic performance, SP did not do his final stunt fully because the metal chain that connected two of his hands together at the back came off. As a result of the deviation from ‘normal performance’, audience left due to disappointment. Additionally, even though the SP apologized at front stage (where acts were formally performed), at the back stage, where performer was his own self, he complained about the person didn’t tie him properly caused a detrimental affect to the show. This analysis also supports Goffman’s notion on different presentation front and back stage.

Conclusion

From this qualitative study, I have argued that SP is based on persuasion of performers to enthrall audience to watch the show, as well as the implicit negotiation from the performer to maintain a captive audience. This analysis has been related to the Henrique’s study, which is concluded that SP’s charisma (ethos) and emotional appeal (pathos) will intrigue audience’s attention and their talent (Logos) will maintain number of people watching the show (implicit negotiation). Secondly, this analysis also supports Goffman’s theory regarding expectations of performances, where fail stunt show would lead to lower income for the performers, as well as the distinguished behavior in “front stage” and “back stage”. However, conclusions in this study must be considered carefully. Firstly, there will be no replication of performance because it occurs in natural setting and cannot be reproduced, thus different researchers may reproduce inconsistent findings. Secondly, because this research is reliant upon my observation, the conclusion about how SP attracts and maintains audience could be altered by my cultural bias and ignorance to some factors (Narani, 2008). These two factors deteriorate the generalizability of the aforementioned conclusions. Thus, for future research, larger ethnographic study can be conducted, along with abundant video and voice recording of the show, as well as informal conversations or interview with street performers. In this way, many ethnographers has unlimited access to the data and analyzing it will reduce cultural bias, also able to manage larger data to enhance generalizability of conclusions.

References:

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Goffman, Erving. 1959. "1. Performances." The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Print.

Henriques, Julian. 2011. Sonic Bodies: Reggae Sound systems performance techniques and ways of knowing.New York: Continuum International Publishing Group

"London's Tourism Industry." London's Tourism Industry.N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2014. http://www.uncsbrp.org/tourism.htm

Nurani, Lusia Marliana. 2008. “Critical Review Of Ethnographic Approach”. KK Ilmu Kemanusiaan. FSRD ITB.

Shenkar, Oded. 2001. "Cultural Distance Revisited: Towards A More Rigorous Conceptualization and Measurement of Cultural Differences." Journal of International Business Study 32.3.pg: 527. Web