STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

Street Artists in Europe
(1559-1621), joint ruler of the Southern Netherlands from 1598 and large accompaniment. Their
city entrances were followed by many Triumphes and pomps. Besides the regular closed
performances and festivities, there were many outside shows followed by the regular people.
The bridge was made across the river Artesis near Dolce with triumphal arches at either end,
built using boats chained together. Artillery Salvo fired by the 2000 troops guarding the bridge.
Another procession by water was done on specially decorated barges, first across the Po and
then downstream to Ferrara while there were banquets, music and dances provided onboard. In
Ferrara there were masquing and dancing by land and water. Theatrical_performance and
comedy was performed to end the ceremonies at Ferrara. After entry into Mantua the procession
of the noblemen bearing the Queen's litter was organized. After the hunt the fireworks, which
lasted until 2 am was seen.
Carnivals have always been the background for street actions. Venice – ‘la Serenissima’
converted itself into the big open-air theatre scene during the carnivals. Not only street and
markets but channels, bridges, embankments and gondolas were included, too. In addition there
was annually another show on the sea with rich decorated boats and vessels presenting the
Doge’s (and Venice’s) engagement to the Sea. The carnival provoked artistic creativity in
everyone. The people were anonymous behind their masks and started acting. Thus carnival was
and still is (in Venice, Rio de Janeiro) the total street theatre. French farce and sottie or German
Carnival plays (since the 15 th century, Hans Sachs) were developed for market places in other
countries, later even out of carnival season. “Carnival [fighting the globalized spectacles]
manifests its theatrics all around us, as authority figures and norms of behavior guiding our
socialization become questioned and their rigid structure turns problematic” (Mueller, 2000).
Contemporary carnival is more controlled, a safer theatre than ones in the Middle Ages.
Carnivalesque has four themes: the tumultuous crowd, the world turned upside-down, the comic
mask and the grotesque body. Contemporary carnival is a polyphonic (many voiced) expression
by those without power, sometimes sanctioned by those in power as a way to blow off steam 254 .
The era of building theatres again after ancient models in Ferrara (1486), London (1576),
Vicenza (1584), Sabbionetta (1588-1590) etc. underlined the uniqueness of the street
performances. Commedia dell’arte then founded the huge source of theatre acting with its
vitality, sensuality and spontaneity for next three centuries having developed the character
reserve of over 100 types for any kind of the following theatrical actions. The export to other
countries started soon. The first Italian companies started acting in Spain (1535) in the atriums
of Corpus Christi fraternities. Very soon the law prohibiting actors emerged in Spain in 1598.
Renaissance celebrations and square performances (Florence) were enlarged by elaborate
“triumphs” which Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance artists designed. These streetworks,
incorporating music, verse, costume and mobile constructions on floats, may well have
been the only contact between the common people and the major professional artists of the time,
apart from the occasional distant glimpses of an altarpiece. Vasari designed triumphs for
Cosimo I in Florence, and oil-sketches of designs for processions by Rubens still exists. P.
Brueghel junior documents by his famous poainting Boerenkermes the stage on the street in
Netherland. Besides English corrales, Inigo Jones and later Sir James Thornhill designed
spectacular masques for performance at Court, but there was still a strong and continuous
medieval tradition of mysteries and other works played to a crowd in a cobbled courtyard
outside the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh even in 1971 255 .
254 Boje, David M.: Theatrics of Control: Tamara of Spectacle, Festival, and Carnival, 2001
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/pages/theatrics_of_control.htm
255 A. Henri was struck with the closeness of the work of the young English artists to this medieval tradition.
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PE 375.307